Nuts are of course a fatty food and many might worry that they will put on weight by eating more nuts. After all, 30 grams (or one ounce) of most nuts contain about 800 kilojoules (200 kilocalories). Happily though, on present evidence, nuts do not seem to cause weight gain. For example in the Nurses' Study the frequent nut consumers were actually a little thinner on average than those who almost never consumed nuts, and daily supplements of almonds or peanuts for six months resulted in little or no increase in body weight. Nuts appear to satisfy hunger sufficiently well to appropriately reduce the consumption of other food.
Which nuts are best? The definitive answer to this question is currently unknown. In the Adventist Study about about 32 percent of the nuts eaten were peanuts, 29 percent almonds, 16 percent walnuts, and 23 percent other types. These researchers did not ascertain whether the nuts were fresh, oil-roasted, or dry-roasted. The Nurses' Study found that peanuts, which are legumes, appeared to be just as effective in reducing the risk of coronary heart disease as tree nuts. Experiments where volunteers were fed nuts as part of their diet for several weeks have found that walnuts, almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans. all alter the composition of the blood in ways that would be expected to reduce the risk of coronary disease. Chestnuts, a nut unusually low in fat, do not yet seem to have been studied. The best advice currently is probably to eat a variety of nuts. Walnuts though, because they contain n-3 fatty acids, may be particularly beneficial.
For more details on whole grains and its nutrients
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