Posted on: Monday, August 4, 2003
It may be time to think of nuts as good for you
By Sally Squires
Washington Post
Things are going to get a little nutty. That's because the Food and Drug Administration has granted nut producers the right to feature a "qualified" health claim on their labels.
As a result, look for a bag of nuts near you to soon proclaim: "Scientific evidence suggests, but not does not prove, that eating 1.5 ounces of most nuts as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease."
The American Heart Association and the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute say that nuts can be part of a heart-healthy diet. The U.S. Dietary Guidelines also say that one-third of a cup (about 1.5 ounces) of nuts or two tablespoons of peanut butter may be substituted for one ounce of meat.
Even so, nutrition experts worry that some consumers may use the new health claim as a license to overeat nuts. "It's very important that the public understand what a qualified health claim means," says Rose Marie Robertson, the AHA's chief science officer. "It means there is suggestive early data, but there is not yet conclusive evidence."
Meanwhile, as nut companies jockey for position on grocery shelves, here are a few things you need to do to make wise choices:
• Go ahead, add nuts. But be prepared to subtract other food, unless your goal is to increase body weight. An ounce and a half of nuts contains about 250 calories. Eating that much every day for just two weeks would add up to an extra pound unless you compensate by cutting other calories. "Don't assume there will be a health benefit from throwing a handful of nuts on your salad," says Alice Lichtenstein, professor of nutrition at Tufts University in Boston. "It could certainly be negated by adding extra calories."
• Know your nuts. Some pack a hefty dose of problematic saturated fat along with their healthy mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated fat. For example, an ounce of Brazil nuts contains 5 grams of saturated fat — two more grams than are found in three slices of bacon. Cashews and macadamia nuts each have 3 grams of saturated fat per ounce — slightly more than is contained in an ounce of potato chips. Lowest in saturated fat: almonds (1 gram per ounce); hazelnuts, pistachios and walnuts (1.5 grams each) and peanuts, pecans and pine nuts (2 grams each).
• Count. Eyeballing won't do it. Neither will measuring out a handful, since there's wide disparity in hand sizes. When it's not convenient to use a scale (or a one-third cup measure, which holds about 1.5 ounces), you can rely on the International Tree Nut Council's math. The group estimates that 1.5 ounces equals 30 to 36 almonds; nine to 12 Brazil nuts; 24 to 27 cashews; 27 to 30 haz-elnuts; 15 to 18 macadamias; 42 to 45 peanuts; 27 to 30 pecans; 225 to 230 pine nuts; 67 to 70 pistachios; and 12 to 16 walnut halves.
• Look beyond vitamin E and omega-3. Yes, nuts contain both. Trouble is that "nuts do not have anything unique that could not be gotten from other foods," Lichtenstein says. Other good choices for healthy fat, she says, are canola, olive or soybean oil. And those omega-3 fatty acids in nuts are very inefficiently converted by the body to the key type of omega-3 needed by the brain, says Joseph Hebbeln, chief of the laboratory of membrane biochemistry and biophysics at the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. If it's omega-3s you seek, eat fish.
• Choose raw, dry-roasted or oil-roasted. No need to sweat the difference, because they all have the same amount of fat. That's because nuts are already so high in fat that they don't absorb any more from roasting in oil. If you're limiting salt, reach for raw or reduced-sodium nuts.
