I just read some information over the weekend targeted at women with PCOS, in which they were advised to eat more almonds because of their omega-3 content.
Please note, almonds do NOT contain omega-3 fatty acids. The only nuts that do, are walnuts, pecans, pine nuts, pistachio nuts, hazelnuts, and cashew nuts. If you wish to verify this for yourself, by visiting the USDA Nutrient Database. The compound you want to look for is called"18:3 undifferentiated fat".
Almonds are not bad for you, and in fact, they contain a lot of great things. In fact, according to the Almond Board of California, they are the tree nut highest in calcium, vitamin E, riboflavin, and niacin. All of these nutrients are important for total PCOS wellness.
It's just important to know that if you're looking for ways to boost your omega-3 intake (which we strongly encourage at inCYST), almonds are not going to be the nut that gets you there.
I've gotten a handful of questions about almonds recently so it seemed like it was time to give them their own personal blog post. It's a good day to talk about the benefits of a handful of almonds, since it's also National Wear Red Day and heart disease is an important risk factor for women with PCOS. They're repeatedly shown to have heart healthy benefits. Eight peer-reviewed studies reported at www.almondsarein.com consistently produced the same results: lower LDL and lower total cholesterol. Other findings included increased HDL, and lower triglycerides.
The disclaimer is that the almonds were used to replace other foods in the diet. In other words, if you know your diet needs some"cleaning up", it won't help to keep eating the problem foods and add the almonds. You need to simultaneously reduce intake of other foods and replace those calories with almonds.
Fortunately, almonds are a tasty snack and can be added to your morning oatmeal, your lunchtime salad, or your favorite muffin recipe. If you'd like to take it one step further and cook more with almonds, the almond people have a great web page with a search engine to give you some ideas.
I just walked over to Fresh and Easy on my break, and noticed a line of snacks called"nut squares". I brought home the cashew, almond, pistachio variety for a closer look.
The product does have a little bit of added sugar, but on the whole, for someone who's looking to reduce their carbohydrate intake, this may be a nice option.
The fat is nut fat, balanced between three types of nuts, and for a serving size (5 pieces), you only get 150 calories. I posted a serving size below.
I really enjoyed the taste, a perfect balance of sweet and salty, as the label says.
There are other varieties available, I just went for this one because I happen to love pistachios.
I'm thinking that in addition to on their own, they'd be really tasty crumbled into some Greek yogurt or on top of oatmeal.
Gotta love the Fresh and Easy demos. Yesterday Steven had a great sample of individually packed Mountain Mix.
As you can see, it contains pumpkin seeds (pepitas), dried cranberries, almonds, cashews, peanuts, raisins, and a few chocolate chips.
The mix comes in individually packaged 210 calorie portions.
I know, I know, you're reading this thinking,"I can make that myself, no need to buy!" Yes, you can, and I encourage you to get in the habit. This is one of those items you might want to consider having on hand for those times when your day is busy, you need to throw something in your purse or daypack, and time in the kitchen simply isn't going to go on the list. It's great for traveling, to pull out of your gym bag after a workout, or to get in on a morning when you just didn't get around to eating breakfast.
And…if you're someone for whom portion sizes with foods like trail mix are an issue, the prepackaged presentation is a subtle mindfulness reminder that you're done with the portion you aim to respect.
The more you prepare yourself for success, the more likely success is what will come knocking at your door.
Way back in the early 80's when I was a brand-new dietitian, we were taught to teach our clients to avoid nuts because of their high fat content. Today, nuts are the new health food. But research is often written up in ways that place a specific nut in the spotlight, without a big-picture perspective.
For example: Walnuts are routinely listed as"the" nut to eat because of their high omega-3 content. Most people do not realize that the omega-6 content of walnuts is so high that it is mathematically impossible to improve your dietary omega-6 to omega-3 ratio by eating only walnuts and no other nuts. Does that mean you shouldn't eat walnuts? Absolutely not! In all honesty, it is mathematically impossible to improve your omega-6 to omega-3 ratio with any nut. It is, however, yet another example of the imbalances we create when we focus on a handful of"super foods" and don't pursue variety.
Being the statistics nerd that I am, I spent the other afternoon looking at 10 different nuts in several different ways. I came to some interesting conclusions. Let me work you through what I did. I don't mean to be tedious, I just want to be transparent so anyone else can work through the analysis just as I did. If you're just looking for what nuts are best to eat,simply skip to the bottom of this post.
1. Analysis one: Best anti-inflammatory index (potential for a food to prevent or promote inflammation, as indexed at http://www.nutritiondata.com/), ranked in order of best to worst: macadamia hazelnut almond cashew peanut pistachio Brazil pecan walnut pine 2. Analysis two: Omega-3 fatty acid content, ranked from highest to lowest per ounce of nuts: walnut pecan pine pistachio macadamia cashew hazelnut Brazil peanut almond Important point of interest: almonds are the only nut that contain absolutely NO omega-3 fatty acids. 3. Analysis 3: Omega-6 to omega-3 ratio, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest (least beneficial) walnut macadamia Brazil pecan cashew pistachio hazelnut pine peanut almond 4. Analysis 4: Total omega-3 and monounsaturated fat content, ranked from highest (most beneficial) to lowest macadamia hazelnut pecan almond cashew brazil peanut pistachio pine walnut 5. Analysis 5: Total saturated fat content, ranked from lowest (most beneficial) to highest walnut almond hazelnut pine pistachio pecan peanut cashew macadamia Brazil SUMMARY ANALYSIS: In each list, I placed a number"1" next to the top item, and numbered each nut below it in numerical order. Then I added up the scores for each nut based on their rank in each category. The lowest score shows the overall rank. This helps nuts that many not have one outstanding quality still receive a decent ranking--it gets credit, in other words, for being all-around pretty good without being written off for having one quality that is considered"bad" striking it off as"unhealthy". It also keeps a nut with one outstanding quality for getting too much credit when there may be nutritional aspects that truly keep it from being a superfood. The final rankings, with the most potentially beneficial at the top: macadamia hazelnut walnut pecan cashew almond/pistachio (tied) Brazil/pine (tied) peanut I guess you could say…just like people, all nuts have their good and not-so-great qualities. By spending too much time with one, you'll miss out on the benefits of the others. Diversify your interests, and you'll get the best benefit.
I'm not at all a fan of the Food Guide Pyramid or the new My Pyramid. I know too much about the politics of how each food got its position in the diagram. And I know that the concept is promoted by the Department of Agriculture, not the Department of Health and Human Services. So it's really about marketing commodities at least as much, if not more than, promoting healthy eating.
Last year at this time it occurred to me that eating patriotically (if you are a citizen of the United States, France, Chile, Czechoslovakia, and the United Kingdom, to name a few), is a fun way to think about what constitutes a healthy choice.
So I went to Google to see if there was anything under the term,"food flag". I found this:
Sausage and pasta were not really what I had in mind, so I scrolled further, and found this:
Absolutely not what I wanted to communicate!
So…I had a little fun and I made my own. I hope you like it!
I posted a bigger version on my website, feel free to use it as long as you keep the copyright notice intact in the lower righthand corner. You can find it at www.afterthediet.com/foodflag.htm.
