Walnuts: Healthy Despite Fat Thanks To Good Ingredients

Walnuts are greasy, but are walnuts healthy? The answer to this question and everything about ingredients, nutritional values, and more can be found in the article.

This nut is special. Not everyone likes them and some like nuts but cannot eat them. Walnuts are healthy. You can find out here what they can do for your health and which minerals, vitamins and more can be found in them.

Are walnuts healthy? The facts about the greasy nut

Walnuts are considered part of a healthy diet. It should do a lot for the health and impress with its good nutritional values. So it may seem a bit strange when you look at the nut nutritional values ​​and realize that it is extremely high in fat. Can something like that be healthy?

Walnuts have been popular with people for thousands of years, as Stone Age people probably knew the fruit. The Romans and Greeks also valued the nut as a symbol of fertility – and that indicates that they too thought a lot of the delicious nuts. The fruits of the walnut tree actually come from Asia and mainly grow in more temperate climate zones – the nuts in German supermarkets, for example, come mainly from France and the USA.

But the trees of the real walnut (lat. Juglans regia) also grow in Germany, especially on many orchards and in gardens there are stately walnut trees that certainly bear a lavish amount of the healthy fruit. Unfortunately, it is also often the case that free-standing trees are harvested by strangers.

The nuts are eaten raw and directly from the shell, as well as peeled from the supermarket. Then the shell has previously been removed by machine. There are also a number of recipes with walnuts, which you can find for cakes, among other things, from our colleagues at LECKER. They are a popular ingredient in salads or pasta dishes, Christmas roasts or in dumpling dough. On the other hand, we always find nuts in sweet dishes, pastries, chocolate or as a topping for ice cream. In addition, the healthy walnut is also processed as walnut oil or, more rarely, walnut ice cream.

But whatever – you are probably wondering which health-relevant substances are contained in the nuts. And this brings us back to fat, because contrary to what you might think, it is actually one of the main reasons to actually eat the delicious, healthy walnuts.

Walnuts: nutritional values, ingredients, and vitamins

Even if fat makes the walnut nutritional values ​​seem pretty heavy at first and provides a lot of calories, we can give the all-clear. The fat is not just the fat that you find in fried fries and Co., but healthier – it is mostly unsaturated fatty acids. These monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids help lower cholesterol levels in the body – both HDL cholesterol and LDL cholesterol. This can help prevent cardiovascular disease.

In addition to the unsaturated fatty acids, which are also known as healthy fatty acids, there are only a few saturated fatty acids in the walnut. However, due to the high fat content, only small amounts of walnuts should be eaten. According to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), 100g of walnuts have around 654 kcal – which also comes from the approx. 65 grams of fat. In addition, the USDA walnut nutritional values ​​show us that 100g contains around 15 grams of protein and 14 grams of carbohydrates. There are almost 7 grams of dietary fiber and 2.6 grams of sugar. The sugar values ​​are therefore negligible in relation.

In addition to the walnut nutritional values ​​​​with carbohydrates and Co., the ingredients of the nuts are also interesting, because they show you that the walnut is not only valued for its healthy fats, but also for the minerals and vitamins that it contains in large numbers are included. According to Apotheken Umschau and USDA, these healthy minerals and vitamins make the nut an important part of our diet:

• potassium
• zinc
• magnesium
• iron
• calcium
• phosphorus
• selenium
• zinc
• copper
• manganese
• sodium
• Vitamin A
  Vitamin B1 (thiamine)
• Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin)
• Vitamin B3 (Niacin)
• Vitamin B4 (choline)
• Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
• Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine)
• Vitamin B7 (biotin)
• Vitamin B8 (inositol)
• vitamin C
• vitamin E
• Vitamin K1
• beta-carotene
• Betaine (only in small amounts, but important for biosynthesis in the body)

Walnuts also contain numerous other substances, such as beta-sitosterol, the effect of which is evident in the body through a wide range of processes – including lowering cholesterol levels. In addition, many important amino acids are found in the fruit of the walnut tree, both essential and semi-essential.

So you see – despite the high number of calories, this value is put into perspective by the valuable nutrients in the nut. It doesn’t matter whether it’s fatty acids or other nutrients that are good for the heart, brain, and other parts of the body. This makes hard-shelled walnuts an important part of our diet. A handful of nuts a day can help make us healthier.

Walnuts: Harmful and unhealthy due to mold

Although walnuts are actually recommended for health reasons, walnuts can still be unhealthy due to mold. The walnuts should actually be stored in a dark, dry and airy place, then they can keep for up to a year. If the nuts are stored incorrectly, so-called aflatoxins, a type of mold, can form.

The walnut should therefore not have any cracks or mold on the shell. You should also stop eating them if they taste musty or rancid. However, walnuts can also no longer be good for other reasons. You can find out by doing a shaking test, as recommended by the Bavarian Consumer Advice Center. For the walnut shake test, take the nut and shake it by your ear. If you hear the kernel inside, the nut is no longer good.

There are also a number of pests that can damage walnuts before they are harvested. This includes the walnut fruit fly, which causes the unripe fruit to turn black. It is then better to refrain from eating the delicious snack.

Bad summer weather can also damage the walnuts on the tree. The reason for this is the so-called leaf spot fungus, which sometimes damages the leaves to such an extent that there can be a complete failure of the harvest. Then there is nothing left with the good effect of the food on health – because of no nuts, no consumption.

Apart from that, however, walnuts are not unhealthy or harmful and are highly recommended as a small snack in between for all people without allergies – just in the right amount and not in excess.