Walnuts
Why walnuts?
- Improves cardiovascular health
- Reduces blood pressure
- Improves brain function
- Promotes bone health
- Provides antioxidant defense
Walnuts are a wonderful source of omega-3 essential fatty acids, a special type of protective fat that the body does not manufacture. Walnuts have an extremely high level of these essential fats; a quarter of a cup provides about 90% of your daily value.
Adding walnuts to your diet is a very important step to improving your cardiovascular health. They are a good source of monounsaturated fat (15% of the fat found in walnuts is monounsaturated). Monounsaturated fat has been shown to lower LDL cholesterol in the body, thus reducing the risk of heart problems. Since walnuts have such a high amount of omega-3s, they can also reduce blood pressure due to the loss of LDL cholesterol.
Walnuts have often been referred to as a “brain food”. This, again, is because of their high concentration of omega-3 fats. Your brain is more than 60% structural fat. In order for your brain to function properly, this structural fat should primarily be the omega-3 essential fat that is found in walnuts. Alpha-Linolenic acid, the omega-3 fat found in walnuts, promotes bone health and reduces risk of cardiovascular disease. This is good news to those who are concerned about, or have arthritis. Other conditions that walnuts provide defense against are asthma, eczema, psoriasis, and rheumatoid arthritis.