Walnuts: When and Why They Can Cause Diarrhea

Walnuts can certainly cause diarrhea or far worse health problems. Nuts, and walnuts in particular, are of course generally very healthy. But under certain circumstances, the small nutrient bombs can also make you ill and stomach problems are the smallest problem.

Walnuts – occasionally the nuts cause diarrhea

Walnuts cause diarrhea and other health problems under certain circumstances. Therefore, you should consider a few things before consuming walnuts.

• In general, walnuts are not harvested from the tree. As long as the nuts are still on the tree, they are not yet ripe. Ripe, healthy walnuts fall off on their own, so all you have to do is pick them up off the ground.
• However, the same applies here: the exception proves the rule and this can have unpleasant consequences for your well-being. Sometimes walnuts come loose from the tree that are still unripe.
• If you find some walnuts in the ground that are not surrounded by a crumpled brown outer shell but by a tight green one, caution is advised. These walnuts are not yet ripe and therefore not suitable for consumption.
• In this state, the nuts usually still contain plenty of tannic acid and that is at least as unhealthy as it sounds. Stomach problems and/or diarrhea are usually the result.

Walnuts – when the nutrient packages are dangerous

Stomach upset, diarrhea and vomiting are no joy, but they can get much worse. Under certain circumstances, the consumption of walnuts, hazelnuts and co. can massively damage your health. However, you have to consume some nuts thoughtlessly for this.

• Mold is at least partially visible on most foods. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case with nuts. Sometimes the shells of walnuts have tiny black dots. However, these are actually hardly recognizable in the structure and color of the walnut shells and most of the time the toxic mycotoxins on the nuts are therefore not visible to the naked eye.
• You can recognize mold in the walnuts if they have a peculiar, rather bitter taste. In addition, the nuts often smell unpleasant.
• It is not uncommon for suboptimal storage conditions to be responsible for the mold in the walnuts. For this reason, there is a high risk that all the nuts that have been stored together are already affected by the mycotoxins.
• If you eat one or two of these walnuts, in the worst case it will only cause stomach and/or intestinal problems. However, if you eat a large amount of walnuts that are infected with mold over the winter, this can have serious health consequences.
• Mycotoxins are suspected of causing or promoting serious diseases such as the formation of tumors and damage to the liver and kidneys. Therefore you should take a close look.