Like Father, Like Daughter - nutritional benefits of nuts - Brief Article

Better Nutrition, June, 2001 by Patti Woods-Lavoie

My parents have the ugliest vase sitting in their living room. It's brown terra cotta and is covered with thick, pointy spikes. It is a hideous sight. I should know -- I made it.

My parents became the lucky owners of it because, as a broke college student one year, I doled out all of my art projects as Christmas presents.

You would think that seven years later my parents would have silently disposed of the wretched thing, but my father, in fact, loves it because it is the perfect receptacle for peanut shells. He has always loved nuts and, just as you learn by example, my brothers and sisters and I also have developed a passion for these wonderful, natural snacks.

Take, for instance, my brother Andy. He loves the bowls of mixed nuts in the shell we have every year at Thanksgiving. If I remember correctly, he likes the walnuts, but then again, it might be the almonds. Whatever the case, I do know for sure that nobody likes the Brazil nuts except my mother. Maybe it's because they are so hard to open -- too much work for too little gain. But that's all right, there are so many other varieties to be enjoyed.

Like pistachios. On rare occasions we would get them, always the red kind. (This was before we knew the evils of artificial colors. How did that trend of dyeing pistachios even get started, I wonder?) There was a certain process to eating them. First, you'd suck the red dye off the shell and then, using your fingers (which were stained bright red), you'd crack it open to get to get the meaty green nut. Heaven.

I still remember eating my first cashew. My grandparents had a bowl of mixed salted nuts on the table. I picked up one of the boomerang-shaped goodies and popped it in my mouth. It was salty, sweet and so good. They quickly became my favorite. But, then again, I do love almonds. And pecans. And, oh, macadamias. Or perhaps my favorite is just like my father's -- peanuts.

Nothing beats the peanuts my sister and I would get at the annual Memorial Day parade in our hometown. One of the local charitable organizations would sell packages of roasted-in-the-shell salted peanuts. There was something magic about them ... they were salted just right and the roasting brought out their deep, nutty flavor.

Year after year, however, we'd always find ourselves in a quandary. You see, the peanuts didn't have a set price -- you'd just toss some change into the can and take a package of peanuts. But we weren't just satisfied with one package -- we wanted a lot! So we were faced with the dilemma of how to finagle our way into getting a storehouse of peanuts. We finally turned out to be successful when we (very obviously) stuffed a $5 bill into the can and only took one bag. The man selling them laughed at us. "You can take more than that!" Apparently he was onto us. We grabbed fistfuls of packages and ran like the wind.

I think there are a lot of people (me among them) who love nuts but tend to shy away from them because of the bad reputation they've gotten. "Nuts are fattening, you know," my brother would taunt my sisters and me. "Have you ever seen a skinny elephant?" Admittedly nuts do have a moderate-to-high fat content, but, elephants aside, they don't necessarily have to lead to weight gain. We now know that nuts mostly contain monounsaturated fat, a "good" kind that lowers cholesterol and keeps us healthy. We also know that nuts are a great source of fiber and protein, so they're an essential part of a balanced diet.

I think too many of us eschew nuts for seemingly healthier, lower fat snacks like corn chips or pretzels, which is really too bad if you think about it. How many times do you hear people complain, "Why can't something that tastes good be good for you?" Well, it can be. Not only do nuts taste great, but they're nutritious, providing our bodies with the vitamins and nutrients they need. So I think it's about time we gave nuts a second look. And, they offer an added benefit -- a way to put all our ugly vases to good use!