The nuts issue continued

Here's an article from Jeff Nelson on vegsource.com on his recent research on nuts.  This was motivated by the article about Chef AJ a few weeks ago where she lost weight by cutting down the nuts.

http://www.vegsource.com/news/2012/07/cant-lose-the-weight-it-could-be-the-nuts.html

I think the people most affected by this issue are older women because we have the lowest calorie intake needs.  When we eat an ounce of nuts a day, it is a significant source of fat in our diet, and it squeezes out more satiating foods such as potatoes.  And with our lower calories needs, do we really need a full oz?  I prefer 1/2 oz or even lower.

Nuts and Seeds

Here is my understanding of what our cadre of mostly plant-based, whole foods diet doctors (Barnard, Campbell, Esselstyn, Fuhrman, McDougall, and Ornish) recommend (note, Campbell is a Ph.D., not an M.D., for what it's worth).

• They all consider oils to be harmful.  I've heard two reasons quoted for this:  1), they are empty calories, at about 120 calories per tablespoon.  2), perhaps more significantly, most are very high in omega-6 fatty acids (more on this below).
• Whole foods fat sources are good for you, in limited quantities.  These include nuts and seeds, avocado and relatively unprocessed soy products (soy milk, tofu, edamame, tempeh).  (NOT isolated soy products used to make tofu hotdogs and sausages and protein supplements).

As far as I know, the only differences in their recommendations are

• Fuhrman has a lower limit to the amount of nuts and seeds that should be consumed by everyone, which is 1 oz.  I think the other doctors do not. 
• Fuhrman recommends an omega-3 supplement (DHA), and none of the others do as far as I know.  In fact, some are adamant in their opposition to this.

These differences may be minor, but this became an important question for me lately as I considered transitioning to a lower-fat diet.  Some people have very low calorie needs (e.g., older women) and 1 oz of nuts and seeds, along with modest quantities of avocado and soy products, can easily put the fat percentage above 25%.  

I highly recommend Jeff Novick's DVDs on nuts and oils.  (I also recommend his DVDs on calorie density and lightening up).  This is the best summary that I know of on the topic.  Here I learned about the important of the omega-6 to omega-3 ratio in your diet.  The standard American diet has a very high ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 fatty acids.  We all need a very small amount of omega-3 fats.  Most of us ingest a sufficient amount if we eat a whole foods, mostly plant-based diet with lots of vegetables.  However, we only have so many enzymes available to digest these fatty acids.  If our intake is dominated by omega-6 fatty acids, the enzymes will get used up digesting those.  I hadn't appreciated that fine point until I watched Novick's DVDs.  It might explain something I've been curious about.  I've noticed that some people on the Standard American Diet, who are obviously ingesting large amounts of fat, sometimes appear to have dry, scaly skin and brittle hair.  I suspect they have an omega-3 deficiency--or are unable to digest what they ingest of omega-3, because of the omega-6 imbalance.  I'm just speculating.  Anyway, back to Novick.  He says, as long as we avoid the oils, and excessive consumption of healthy fats, which also mostly have high ratios of omega-6 to omega-3 fats, then we will ingest a sufficient amount of both in proper ratios.  McDougall says the body gets very good at converting the ALAs in foods to omega-3s when it needs them.   The foods with high ALAs, or alpha-linolenic Acids, are flaxseeds and walnuts (hemp too I think).   Novick says if you really want the assurance you are getting enough omega-3s, eat a tablespoon of flaxseed per day.  

Campbell is adamantly opposed to omega-3 supplements.  This surprised me.  I heard him speak about this at the food revolution summit.  He cited studies that show the supplements did not behave as we thought they would.  Here is a quote from the transcript:

"I have in mind particularly a review which was done of a total of 59 different kinds of studies of omega three fats that was published in 2006. This is 6 years ago. It came to the conclusion they simply don't work for reducing heart disease, cancer and diabetes." 

Another study showed that it can increase the incidence of type II diabetes.  what?   He also argues that it's the ratio of omega-6 to omega-3 that matters.

I'm still digesting some other articles sent to me by Kristi (thanks!).  

I decided to follow Novick's advice for now.  I'm not setting a lower limit to my nuts and seed intake (eek!).  I am not taking DHA (Dr. Fuhrman's omega-3 supplement) anymore (eek!), I'm eating 1 T of flaxseed most days.  This is a big change for me as I have been following the Fuhrman advice for about 5 years.  eek!

I have to say, due to the lower fat content in my diet, the extra pounds I've gained the last few years are melting off effortlessly.   Now I have to see where my weight levels off.  I think I don't want to lose more than 1 lb from where I am now.

date pecan butter

Today I decided to see if I could make a sweet nut butter. The answer is yes, but watch out--it tastes great and is really rich. It is not so easy to make though. I made it in a blender and you need to add a lot of nuts to make it work in the blender, 2 cups works.

Ingredients:

2 cups nuts. I used raw pecans, which were really good!

dates to taste---maybe 2-4 medjool dates (remove pits)

soy milk or nut milk or water--maybe 1/2 cup? depends on the consistency you want.

1/2-1 tsp vanilla (optional).

Blend in a high-powered blender. Blend, mash (with plunger or spoon), blend, mash, blend, add more liquid if you need it. It takes a while to get it blended up. Here's what it looks like:

Housemate had it on bread, I had it with strawberries. It was very yummy. It is very rich and hard not to eat too much. Then housemate ran out of bread and I needed to make her smoothies, so I turned this into cream by adding more soymilk, water, and a few more dates. I had some on top of blackberries and used the rest in the smoothies.

mmm, cashew pistachio date cream

I got some cashews, pistachios and dates for housemate's smoothies, and I decided to mix them up ahead of time and enjoy some of the results myself, over berries, which was yummy.

Ingredients:

cashews, pistachios, dates and water.

You are probably wondering, how much? well, it depends on what you are using it for. The smoothies don't need much extra water so I used less, making it very rich and creamy. I got the dates and pistachios already packed in small bags at the store, so it was about 1 cup pistachios, 1 cup cashews, and 10 medium medjool dates. I added about 2 cups of water, so it was very creamy. If you want more of a milk, use fewer nuts and dates, and more water. You can weigh amounts to make sure you are getting reasonable daily portions of the nuts and dates.

Next, blend it all up in a high-speed blender.

Here it is before blending:

And after:

It has a green tint to it from the pistachios. Does it ever taste good! Here was my cut of the profits, poured over fresh blueberries and blackberries.

Yum! The rest I poured into cups for making housemate's smoothies (4 batches totaling 8 servings).

Hemp milk

Ingredients:

1/8 - 1/4 cup hemp seeds

1 cup water

1-2 dates and/or other dried fruit (optional)

1/4 tsp vanilla (optional)

Blend in a blender until smooth. The amount of hemp seeds determines if you want more of a milk or cream. I used the full 1/4 cup, and it was very creamy. I tested it out on top of a few blackberries:

It was yummy! I used some more in ice cream.

I stored it in a couple of small mason jars.

Seed Mixture

About once a week, I grind and combine a bunch of different seeds/nuts and store it in the freezer.  This makes it easy to dole out my daily dose of healthy seeds/nuts.   I vary this weekly depending on my mood and what's on hand.  I'll list all the typical ones I use, and the amounts are what I happened to use this week.  I'll list it in grams, because that's how I measure on the food scale.  If you aren't familiar with grams, 28 grams = 1 oz., and 70 grams is about a half cup (that's approximate).

flax seeds, 130 g
chia seeds, 43
hemp seeds 63
sunflower seeds 59
sesame seeds, 23
pumpkin seeds
walnuts
mediterranean pine nuts

brazil nuts

I grind about 1/2 cup at a time in my vita-mix "dry" container.   I don't grind the chia or hemp seeds; I might just chop lightly the nuts rather than grinding.

Here's the nutritional info on today's mixture.  A 1 Tbsp serving (9 grams) has 49 calories, 1.9 g protein (14%), 3.9 g fat (68%), 2.3 grams of carbs (18.5%).  The omega-6/omega-3 ratio is 0.766.

Here's the result from a batch that has some pine nuts in it (not ground) and chopped walnuts, along with the ground seeds:

These are good to add to everything--salads, soups, steamed veggies, smoothies. In the salads, combined with orange, lime juice, or flavored vinegar, it makes a nice nutty little dressing.

Note, you can use any combination of nuts and seeds you want or have on hand.   Here's a post I wrote about the nutritional content of nuts and seeds, and here are a couple of articles by Dr. Fuhrman on them:  here and here.