The skeptical cardiologist has given out the entire first batch of Dr. P’s Heart Nuts to his patients.
This precisely constructed mixture of hazelnuts, almonds and walnuts designed to maximize heart healthiness has been warmly received and hopefully enthusiastically consumed.
To some extent I feel like I may be preaching to the choir as many of the Heart Nuts recipients told me they were already avid nut fans and consumers.
However, I plan to press on with my mission to increase the amount of nut snacking in the world.
To this end, I have reorganized my blog and created a page devoted to Nuts and Drupes. You can find it here and I’ll reproduce it below.
Furthermore, I have decided to add a fourth nut to the mixture. At this time, I am intensely researching pistachio nuts and macadamia nuts to be the honored nut.
Please feel free to suggest other candidates to be the Fourth Nut (along with appropriate justification) in the comments below and vote in the poll.
Macadamiamaniacaly Yours,
-ACP
Take Our Poll
From The Nuts Page
Nuts, despite containing a lot of fat, are a fantastic heart-healthy snack.
I’ve started handing out my special Dr. P’s Heart Nuts to patients along with the following:
Congratulations!
You have received a packet of cardiovascular disease-busting Dr. P’s Heart Nuts!
One packet 15 grams of almonds, 15 grams of hazelnuts and 30 grams of walnuts.
There is very good scientific evidence that consuming 1/2 packet of these per day will reduce your risk of dying from heart attacks, strokes, and cancer.
The exact components are based on the landmark randomized trial of the Mediterranean diet, enhanced by either extra-virgin olive oil or nuts (PREDIMED, in which participants in the two Mediterranean-diet groups received either extra-virgin olive oil (approximately 1 liter per week) or 30g of mixed nuts per day
In other observational studies it has been found that for every 28 grams/ day increase in nut intake, risk was reduced by:
29% for coronary heart disease 7% for stroke
21% for cardiovascular disease 15% for cancer
22% for all-cause mortality
Surprisingly, death from diseases, other than heart disease or cancer, were also significantly reduced:
52% for respiratory disease
35% for neurodenerative disease
75% for infectious disease
74% for kidney disease
So when you are considering snacking, snack on nuts not processed food! Dr. Pearson
Posts About Nuts
Posts relevant to nuts and prevention of heart disease on my blog are
Nuts, Drupes, Legumes and Mortality
Kind Bars versus Nuts: Choose Just Plain Nuts
Although Nutella contains some hazelnuts it is full of sugar and other processed ingredients: why not eat hazelnuts instead?
Nutty Due Diligence
I spent a lot of time sourcing the nuts for my Dr. P’s Heart Nuts and discovered some disturbing things about almonds.
First, almost all almonds sold in the US have been gassed with proplyene oxide.
Second, roasting almonds can lead to an increase in toxic chemicals.
After finding out the first two facts about almonds I ended up getting raw, organic almonds from Spain. Unfortunately, about 1 in 10 of these were extremely bitter. It turns out these bitter almonds have significant amounts of cyanide. So I wrote “Beware The Bitter Almond.”
I switched my raw, organic almond source to Nuts.com and with their almonds I very rarely encounter the bitter almond.
The other nuts in the mixture are raw and organic and obtained from Nuts.com.
