Whether you prefer almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, peanuts, pecans, pistachios, walnuts or hazel nuts, most of us can agree that nuts are delicious and fattening if we eat too many. However, they are also full of valuable monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, high protein, fiber, minerals, tocopherols, phytosterols, and phenolic compounds for health and beauty. Therefore, here are some reasons why you may want to add more nuts in moderation to your diet for the many benefits they provide.
To begin with, nuts can make a difference for heart health due to all their B vitamins, including vitamin B6 and folate. Why this is so important is because they help counteract homocysteine, an amino acid that may damage the inner walls of arteries that could lead to a heart attack or stroke.
The monosaturated oils in nuts also aid the circulatory system and help cholesterol levels. Nut oils keep the good HDL cholesterol steady while lowering bad LDL cholesterol.
Another of these benefits of nuts centers around their phytochemicals that can act as a preventive for inflammation related diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis due to their fiber, calcium, magnesium, zinc, vitamin E, and omega-3 fats. For this purpose, the nuts that contribute the most are ones such as almonds, peanuts, pistachios, walnuts, and pecans.
Keeping cancer away is still another of these advantages of nuts due to their specialized nutrients that includes plentiful vitamin E and plant compounds that have other foods falling short. There has been some fascinating research on walnuts as the best choice for how their specific biochemicals can work for inhibiting and reducing the growth of some tumors.
Nuts also have benefits that could hinder type two diabetes for how they keep blood sugar controlled. In fact, tree nuts such as walnuts, almonds and pistachios are top performers for this task with their abundance of monounsaturated fatty acids, protein and fiber while possessing few carbohydrates.
For beauty, the benefits of nuts range from a better complexion from healing acne to inflammation if you have eczema or rosacea. The fats found in nuts also serve as a natural moisturizer to maintain supple skin and increase elasticity. Those with acne should try eating more cashews and Brazil nuts in particular due to the selenium.
Slow-growing hair or those with problems with hair loss also could be helped by adding more nuts to the diet that have that selenium. Instead of just turning to Brazil nuts and cashews, try mixing up varieties of nuts with almonds and walnuts for extra hair help due to biotin and their B vitamins, fatty acids, protein, magnesium for strengthening hair cuticles and invigorating the scalp.
Though not a true nut, soy nuts (roasted soybeans) also have tremendous health value. To read further, I linked my earlier post here.
In summary, nuts have more merit that we often give them credit for. Given this, check them out.
