After you've been told for years that fatty foods like nuts
are bad, it's pretty hard to switch gears and start eating
them because: Surprise! Now they're good.
As pasta and baguettes, stars of low-fat diets, fall out of
favor, nuts are taking center stage. The new mantra is: Mono-
and polyunsaturated fats are good; simple carbohydrates are
bad.
When you try eating nuts instead of bread to take the edge
off your appetite, you may get the usual pangs of guilt. But
nuts are amazingly filling.
We can dispel the myth that eating nuts makes you fat. Those
that eat nuts tend to be thinner.
Preliminary evidence suggests that even though nuts are high
in fat and calories, they help people lose weight and keep it
off. They also help people stick to diets better than fat-
free foods that are high in carbohydrates but have no fiber.
The reason is that they provide a feeling of satiety.
The usual caveat applies, of course: the calories from nuts
have to replace other calories. You can't just add them on
and expect to lose weight.
Defying the conventional wisdom that no more than 30 percent
of calories should come from fat, dieters in a Harvard study
who ate 30 percent of their calories from the more healthful
fats, the kind that nuts have, were 3 times as likely to keep
the weight off as those who ate a diet with just 20 percent
of the calories from fat.
Research over the last 20 years strongly suggests that
everyone's diet should include nuts, even though an ounce of
unroasted nuts provides 157-204 calories and 13-22 grams of
fat. Large studies including the Harvard Nurses' Health Study
(86,000 women), the Physicians' Health Study (22,000 men),
and the Adventist Health Study (more than 40,000 people) have
confirmed the link between eating nuts and a reduction in
heart disease.
The monounsaturated fat in nuts, like the fat in olive oil
and avocados, helps lower low-density lipoprotein
cholesterol, the bad kind, without affecting high-density
lipoprotein, the good kind. The more nuts in the diet, up to
a point of course, the greater the drop in cholesterol. (The
point seems to be 2 ounces a day, researchers say.)
A higher-fat diet based on monounsaturated fat does not raise
triglyceride levels, as does a diet low in fat and high in
carbohydrates. Triglycerides are another risk factor in heart
disease.
Nuts are also excellent sources of antioxidants, fiber and
protein. They contain vitamins and minerals like magnesium,
copper, folic acid and zinc that help protect against heart
disease, high blood pressure and stroke, and may also prevent
certain forms of cancer.
US Federal dietary guidelines place nuts in the same food
group as meat, poultry, fish and dry beans. The recommended 2
ounces of nuts a day is easy to fit into ordinary recipes.
Toast chopped walnuts or pecans and add them to a green
salad. Coarsely grind nuts in a food processor and use them
to coat salmon or chicken. Sprinkle toasted chopped nuts on
green vegetables.
Of course, they are also a convenient choice for between-meal
nibbling.
2004 Dr. Reuven Bruner. All Rights Reserved. For more
information contact him at: POB 1903, Jerusalem, 91314,
Israel; Tel: (02) 652-7684; Mobile: 052 2865-821; Fax: (02)
652-7227; Email: dr_bruner@hotmail.com
