Posted on 10/10/2006 6:03:15 PM PDT by blam
Walnuts 'combat unhealthy fats'
The new superfood?
Eating walnuts at the end of a meal may help cut the damage that fatty food can do to the arteries, research suggests. It is thought that the nuts are rich in compounds that reduce hardening of the arteries, and keep them flexible.
A team from Barcelona's Hospital Clinico recommend eating an ounce (28g) of walnuts a day.
The study, which appears in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, also showed walnuts had more health benefits than olive oil.
The researchers recruited 24 adults, half with normal cholesterol levels, and half with levels that were moderately high to the research, which was partly funded by the California Walnut Commission.
Each was given two high-fat salami and cheese meals, eaten one week apart.
For one meal, the researchers added five teaspoons of olive oil. For the other, they added eight shelled walnuts.
Tests showed that both the olive oil and the walnuts helped to reduce the sudden onset of harmful inflammation and oxidation in arteries that follows a meal high in saturated fat.
Over time, this is thought to cause the arteries to start to harden - and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke.
However, unlike olive oil, adding walnuts also helped preserve the elasticity and flexibility of the arteries, regardless of cholesterol level.
Arteries that are elastic can expand when needed to increase blood flow.
Lead researcher Dr Emilio Ros said eating high fat meals disrupted production of nitric oxide by the inner lining of the arteries, a chemical needed to keep blood vessels flexible.
Key chemical
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bbc.co.uk ...
I order mine online at www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com
They have an excellent quality coconut oil and if you buy it by the five gallon bucket it's cheaper than a lot of other sources. It keeps for a long time on the shelf so buying it in quantity is not a problem.
Good fats: butter; beef and lamb tallow; lard; chicken, goose, and duck fat; coconut, palm, and sesame oils; cold pressed olive oil; cold pressed flax oil; marine oils
There must be other properties the walnut has. I doubt this is about the oil content; you probably have to squeeze about a bushel of nuts in order to get a couple ounces of oil, don't you? If so, the form the oil is in would have a negligible health impact when you're eating whole nuts, right?
You seem pretty informative.
I don't consume anything with cottonseed oil in it, but I do find it curious that despite the fact that although practically every junk food contains cottonseed oil, you cannot buy a bottle of the stuff anywhere.
Dr. Andrew Weil says cottonseed oil is the closest thing to motor oil on the market.
The seed oil industry was devastated. Enter the Edible Oil Coalition. To make seed oils edible you have to heat them to cook the toxins out of them which breaks down some of the Hydrogen bonds requiring hydrogenation to get an oil back from the sludge.
In addition to toxin removal and hydrogenation 'edible oils' are bleached, deodorized, colored, and perfumed. All of them are high in Polyunsaturated fat which is an immuno suppressor.
Cottonseed oils ratio is 24%saturated/26%monounsaturated/50%polyunsaturated. There exist a partially hydrogenated variety that has 70%polyunsaturation - Yikes.
That site follows what I was taught too -- with one omission. Walnuts are better with age. Put them (in the shell) in paper bags in the attic for a two-three-four years. The older nutmeat is tastier.
THANKS for that exceedingly informative but pithy response to my cottonseed oil question.
I still wonder why you find so much cottonseed oil in processed foods but you can't buy a bottle of it off the shelf. As you pointed out - the stuff reeks.
Thanks again.
In related news, walnut producers announced an industry-wide price increase...
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