October 22 – National Nut Day

nPostednOctober 22, 2016

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nNutsnare high in healthy fats. They’re high in protein and fiber. Theynprovide a bunch of nutrients such as Vitamin E, several sorts of Bnvitamins, minerals such as calcium and iron, antioxidants – andnmore.

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nWhyndo nuts provide so many nutrients?

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nIt’snbecause they are fruits and seeds. And seeds are baby plants thatnmust include lots of food for the plant until it can sprout and grownand leaf out – and start producing new food using sunlight!

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Notnall plant seeds are called nuts. Nuts are what we call fruits thatnhave a hard (either stony or woody) outer shell (which is the ovarynwall), when the seed remains either attached or fused to that shell.

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nSo…nutsninclude almonds, pecans, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts,nhazelnuts, macadamia nuts, pine nuts, and pistachios. n

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nYounmay realize that all of these nuts grow on trees. You may wonder whynpeanuts are NOT on the list…or you may already know that peanuts donnot grow on trees, but rather underground. Therefore, peanuts are notnnuts (botanically speaking); they are legumes.

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nHowever,npeanuts have many of the sorts of nutrients and proteins that treennuts have, so they are often consider a sort of nut when we arentalking about food groups.

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nOthernseeds that are not botanically true nuts may be considered in the nutnfood group. I’m talking pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds,nand so forth.

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nArenyou nuts about nuts?

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nOfncourse, a few people are allergic to either tree nuts, peanuts, ornboth. But most of us enjoy nuts in our candy, cookies, and otherndesserts, in our salads and sandwiches, in our quinoa or rice dishes,nin our cooked veggies and our snacks and our breads (and maybe evennour pizza dough!). Ground up nuts can be used as flour or as sandwichnspread (such as almond butter) or as a sort of protein powder (say,nin smoothies). n

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nHerenare a few of my favorite ways to eat nuts:

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nInadore almonds, and especially almonds in baked goods, and MOSTnespecially almonds in cookies. The very best of the very best, in mynopinion, are the ricciarelli at Arizmendi Bakery in Oakland, California!