Going Nuts Over Nuts

Posted by Ecolicious in Articles, Food, Health | 2 comments

I love nuts! Go ahead and giggle. Seriously though, I love pecans. I love walnuts. I love cashews, almonds, pistachios and macadamia nuts. I love peanuts too, though technically peanuts are not a nut, but a legume.

I love adding nuts to salads, stir-fry or as topping to a meal. I love baking them into sweet bread, cakes and meats. I’ll eat nuts covered in sugar, chocolate, hot sauce, salt, or raw. I snack on nuts straight out of the bag like candy and treats are just not treats if they don’t have nuts in them.

Often if a recipe does not call for any nuts, I’ll add nuts anyways. And if a recipe does call for nuts I almost always add more than what is called for in the recipe. Why? You guessed it! Because I love nuts.

I think, by far, pecans are my favorite of the nuts. Their sweet and semi-chewy semi-crunchy texture blends in well with almost any recipe. My best memories also involve eating pecans with my mother. My mother and I use to gather pecans near the railroad tracks when I was a little girl, while awaiting the arrival of my sister’s bus stop nearby. I’ve written many stories about these pecans memories, sitting next to my mom at the dinner table with a cup of cinnamon tea, a bag full of pecans, a nut cracker, two bowls (one for the pecans and the other for the shells) and hours of conversation. I loved listening to my mother’s childhood stories.

Over the years I have learned to appreciate not only the taste, but the health benefits of nuts too. “According to the Food and Drug Administration, eating about a handful (1.5 ounces, or 42.5 grams) a day of most nuts, such as almonds, hazelnuts, peanuts, pecans, some pine nuts, pistachio nuts and walnuts, may reduce your risk of heart disease” (http://www.everydayhealth.com). Nuts also help satisfy hunger which in turn helps with weight loss. Nuts even help reduce cholesterol.

Why are nuts so helpful? Because they contain a lot of protein, fiber, healthy monounsaturated fats, vitamins, nutrients, and antioxidants that a healthy body and mind need. You see, Mommy nature has packed in so much of the good we need to stay healthy into these small, plentiful and tasty nuts. All we have to do… is eat the nuts (no pun intended).
.

♥

Image Credit: Health Nuts by polit_education on Zazzle

♥

[amazon-product]0061235016[/amazon-product]