What is the Best Nut for Health?

Inside: You want to know what is the best nut? Good news. You’ll like my answer.

Which nut is your favorite?

I adore walnuts in my oatmeal and muesli.

Chocolate-covered almonds are one of my go-to desserts.

Have you tried Wonderful Salt and Vinegar Pistachios? Oh my gosh! They are amazing!

Peanut butter and chocolate is my first love.

Let’s stop the myth of best foods

Today’s media climate is all about superfoods. The Internet (and coworkers and family members) scream that one food or another is the magic shield to keep you young, strong and disease-free. It’s enough to drive us all crazy. Well it drives me crazy.

Is there a best nut, fruit, vegetable, ice cream flavor?

Which nut is best for health?

Nope!

Each type of nut, fruit and vegetable has a unique array of nutrients and phytonutrients. No single nut (or any other food) reigns supreme.

When it comes to ice cream, consider it for what it is – a treat food. Eat a small amount of whatever flavor or flavors you like best.

A 1/4-cup serving of mixed nuts serves up tons of health-boosting nutrients and phytonutrients.

Delicious healthy facts about nuts

In general, eating nuts is linked to less type 2 diabetes, healthier cholesterol and triglyceride levels, smaller waist circumference, better blood pressure levels, less insulin resistance and more.

Want to know what else you can eat to help prevent type 2 diabetes? Check out Add These Foods to Your Prediabetes Diet.

Remember, what’s good for the heart is also good for the brain. So it’s smart to eat nuts.

Plenty of reasons to love the heck out of nuts!

• Nuts are an important part of many healthy eating patterns, such as a Mediterranean-style diet and plant-based diets.
• Eating almonds in place of less healthy foods can improve cholesterol levels and might even help the way HDL-cholesterol functions. Eating just 23 almonds can give you 50% of the recommended amount of the antioxidant vitamin E.
• Nuts contain cholesterol-lowering compounds called plant stanols and sterols, which I discuss in greater detail in another post.
• Just one Brazil nut a day can keep selenium deficiency away. A single nut offers more than the recommended daily intake of this antioxidant mineral.
• Though not a true nut, the peanut has a similar nutrient profile and offers health benefits comparable to other nuts. And they’re typically more affordable. Peanut allergies can be quite serious. Fortunately, new research finds a method to reduce a child’s risk for developing a peanut allergy. Talk to your child’s pediatrician to learn when and how to introduce peanuts into your child’s diet.
• Pecans are native to America! And they’re packed with the same types of phytonutrients found in fruits, vegetables and freshly brewed tea.
• Pistachios pack a mere 3 calories per nut. Plus they offer up lutein and zeaxanthin, two cousins of beta-carotene, which appear to protect both the eye and the brain. And pistachios are the only tree nut that’s a good source of protein!
• Walnuts uniquely provide ALA, an important omega-3 fatty acid. Walnuts may also help protect against colon cancer and have other beneficial effects in the gut. Here’s How to Throw a Dinner Party for Your Gut Bacteria.

This freshly opened walnut seems to be saying that it’s heart-healthy! I was lucky to see these nuts harvested on a sponsored tour. You can see my photos of the California Walnut Harvest.

How to enjoy nuts daily

Here are just a few tips to love the heck out of every best nut.

• Top green vegetables with toasted cashews. Cashews have a unique buttery taste, so add a few to any dish calling for both crunch and butter flavor.
• Toss any favorite nut into side dishes such as rice, quinoa and barley as well as fruit salads and green salads for a crunchy boost of nutrition.
• Mix walnuts or pecans into the batter for banana bread, zucchini bread, bran muffins and pancakes.
• Snack on pistachios in the shell, and place the empty shells in a dish in front of you to keep an eye on portion control.
• Add chopped nuts to chicken salad. Walnuts are my fave here.
• Sprinkle roasted peanuts over some Asian dishes like this Asian-Inspired Barramundi.
  

  Asian-style Barramundi

• Fill mushroom caps with diced nuts and wild rice.
• Slip a toasted pecan and some honey-drizzled goat cheese into a large date after removing the pit.
• Grind nuts in a food processor to make “nut crumbs.” Sprinkle them over casseroles like you would bread crumbs.
• Roll these Sweet Potato Balls in chopped walnuts or pecans.

• Love the heck out of these Chocolate Oat Peanut Butter Balls.

Chocolate-covered almonds are one of my favorite desserts with benefits.

Your turn! What’s a favorite way to eat health-boosting nuts.