Eating Healthy - Are You Nuts?

By MexiKen | 0 Comments | Rating: 0 | |

When it comes to healthy eating, doing what's right can often feel like riding a roller coaster. Food fads change more often than fashion or hairstyles it seems. There was the food pyramid. There was the approach of, "avoid fats at all costs but eat all the carbs you want". There has been, "eat anything you want as long as it is NOT carbohydrates". The variations and tweaks on these themes and many more, can have your head spinning if you try to keep up with it all. With all that said though, many people DO want to keep up with it all, and with good reason. We all want the best health for ourselves and our families that we can. In order to best achieve that it is important to know what kinds of foods you should eat, and what kinds of foods you should avoid. With that in mind as take a look at where nuts stand in today's nutritional picture.

For many adults we can remember when nuts were considered a healthy food or snack. But then came the "avoid the fact" craze, and because nuts do have a lot of fat in them, they were ostracized. Fortunately we have realized that the idea of avoiding nuts is just that... nuts!

Nuts can be grouped in the same food group as neat because, similar to meat they contain a lot of protein. One advantage that nuts have over meat is that they also contain fiber; something that is essential for a healthy digestive tract which is not contained in meat. And while fiber and a healthy digestive tract is important for everyone, people who eat a lot of meat in particular need to ensure that they get plenty of fiber in their diet. Nuts are one great source to help fill that gap.

In addition to the benefits of fiber, many nuts also contain a good supply of vitamin E. Vitamin E is a powerful antioxidant that can help protect your body's cells from every day damage. Plus, the fats that are contained in nuts are primarily the mono unsaturated fat; the type of fat that is necessary and healthy for the body, so getting more of it is actually a good thing for you. In fact, some research shows that eating nuts can impact your health in a positive way in a multitude of ways.

For example, studies suggest that eating almonds may help lower not only the LDL cholesterol (which is the bad kind of cholesterol that you want lowered), but it can help lower total cholesterol as well. People who regularly eat nuts may have a lower incidence of heart disease too.

Because nuts have a high fat content they have high satiety. this means they do it good job at filling you up and keeping you from being overly hungry. Because of this, nuts can play an integral role in a weight management program. The key is portion control however. Keeping your nut intake to about 1 ounce, 3 to 4 times per week is a good standard. To give you a rough idea of how much that is, consider the following; 24 almonds should weigh roughly 1 ounce, as would a teen cashews, 49 pistachios or 14 Walnut halves.

Knowing that nuts are good for you can help you incorporate them into your diet and into your overall plan for healthy eating. Combining easy, healthy meal preparation containing lots of lean protein and fiber from legumes and beans (such as turkey chili prepared in a rival slow cooker) with healthy snacks such as mixed nuts, you can easily have inexpensive, portable meals for home as well as to bring with you to work for lunch. Speaking of which... I recently had to buy some new Rival crock pot parts after losing the lead to one of ours. Now that it's back, it's time to cook up some of that delicious turkey chili.

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