If you are what you eat, then I am more than a little bit nuts these days. I wasn't eating tons of nuts until the low sodium diet kicked in and made it very difficult to find neat, portable foods that I can snack on. The vending machine certainly isn't an option now. I'm eating a lot of fruit, but fruits don't always satisfy and they don't travel well. Raw unsalted nuts seems like an easy target, so I've been consuming them daily. In fact, I am eating so many nuts every day I got a little concerned that this was perhaps a bad idea, and started poking around on the internet to see what I could learn.
The good news is that nuts are healthy foods that are OK for daily consumption, especially if you are eating them in place of unhealthy snacks. Even though nuts are high in fat, they are also high in protein, fiber and vitamins. Best of all they help lower cholesterol.
The bad news (and it is only minor bad news) is that some of my favorite nuts are not the best ones for you to eat, although they still convey some of the same health benefits as the better nuts. Cashews are my favorite, and macadamias are a nice treat. Both of these varieties are fattier than almonds, walnuts and peanuts.
The bottom line is that any kind of raw unsalted nut makes a fine snack that doesn't add sodium to your diet. And as long as you are not eating truckloads of them, they are more likely to help you than to harm you. As for me, I plan to continue my nutty snack habit.
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