Nuts and Seeds in Your Diet

Nuts and seeds are rammed full of dietary essentials and easy to add into your diet, they can be hard to digest so mill them in the blender or grind them up in your single auger juicer to help your body get the best from them. Milling or grinding will break the seed or nut down a little and make them easier for your body to digest. Nuts contain protein, fiber, vitamin E and a good selection of minerals. They are potent and calorie rich though so you only need a few.

Nutty butters: some juicers excel at making nut butters, the single auger machines are the best for this, they double up as pestle and mortar style homogenizing machines that allow you to make pastes, nut butters, baby foods and other goodies.

Nutty hint: common sense this one but always buy non salted nuts, salt is everywhere in our diets, you don't need to add any salt in the form of salty nuts, that's for sure! Also salt makes things very moreish, so you'll find it hard to stop eating them!

Nuts and seeds go great in smoothies and mill into dust in a decent blender. Mill them up before you put the fruit and vegetable ingredients in so they are ultra easy for your body to use. This is a super way of introducing vegetable protein to your diet as well as essential fatty acids, my favored seeds are Hemp or Flax seed.

Nutty warning when you make a smoothie for someone, make sure the do not have a nut allergy! Take extra care when making drinks for children as they may be completely unaware of their allergies and intolerance.

Nut storage nuts are easy to store, you just need some screw top or lever seal containers, like any food they do need to be in air tight containers! They will then last 2-6 months quite easily, put a few grains of rice in with them to absorb moisture.

Seeds

Seeds again are natural powerhouses of nutrition we like linseeds, pumpkin seeds, hemp, sesame seeds and pine nuts which are the seed of the pine tree, expensive I know but great tasting and a fine source of vitamin E. We think the reason they are expensive is the cost of extracting them from such a spiky tree!

Apple pips are not good to eat, make sure you core or quarter the apple and remove the pips from them!

Seed sense! Seeds are potent, you only need a few regularly, and buy them hulled and keep them in sealed containers, flax seed oil is a good source of essential fatty acids.

Well I hope you found that useful and it helps you in some way, the importance of a diet rich in fruits and vegetables is clear to see and we thing juicing has it part! We think juicing and smoothie making is one of the best ways of getting a healthy diet and remember that nutrients can be fragile so keep it raw!

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Eating Nuts and Seeds Helps Lower the Risk of Diverticulosis

The consumption of nuts, seeds, and popcorn have long been considered dietary no-noes for those with a painful digestive disorder known as diverticulitis. Diverticular disease is a rather common occurrence among the aging Western population. Roughly one-third will develop this condition by the age of 60, and two-thirds by the age of 85.

For many years doctors believed that eating these types of foods worsened the condition, thus they advised their patients to strictly avoid them. Nuts and seeds were thought to pass through the bowel undigested, or partially undigested. It was also thought that the high fiber in these types of foods could further damage the delicate intestinal membrane of the large bowel (colon), or lodge along weak protruding points that result in small pouches called diverticula. If these little sacs become obstructed or inflamed they can enlarge erupting in pain, fever, and bleeding.

High in monounsaturated fat and appetite suppressing fiber, vitamins, and minerals, nuts (in moderation) are a part of a heart healthy diet. They are also a great addition in the diet by helping lower the risk of of developing Type 2 diabetes.

Lisa L. Strate, M.D., M.P.H. and associates from the University of Washington School of Medicine, Seattle reasoned that there seemed to be very little evidence to support this long-standing theory of dietary treatment. Avoiding certain types of foods also posed other health risks for those who suffered from this condition.

In the largest study of its kind, conducted from 1986 to 2004, 47,228 men were followed for 18 years. Participants were aged 40 through 75, and were screened to be free of cancer, inflammatory bowel disease, or diverticulosis. During the follow-up, only 801 new cases of the condition emerged in the study group, and only 383 of those developed complications of bleeding.

What this study did uncover, however, was that the opposite appears to be true. Eating more fiber rich foods, even after a diverticulitis attack, actually lowered the risk of having another attack or developing further complications. In fact, low fiber intake may just be the cause of this condition

Those that participated in this study, who reported eating nuts at least twice weekly, lowered their risk by 20 percent. Those who reported eating popcorn regularly, lowered the risk by 28 percent.

In bulking up the diet with more foods that are high in fiber, which includes nuts and seeds, chewing your food thoroughly and increasing water intake is also essential to averting the straining muscle contractions associated with constipation, by decreasing the pressure on an aging intestinal wall.

The conclusion of this rather large study suggests the sage advice of the past needs to be seriously reconsidered. Along with the encouragement of stepping up the fiber intake to prevent this painful condition in the first place, one must also consider that high fiber foods require increased water absorption from the colon .

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Raw Nuts & Seeds Can Improve Your Health

Did you know that raw nuts & seeds are some of the most important foods you can eat? Just think: when you plant a small seed it germinates and then bursts forth from the ground with power to produce a wonderful, healthy plant. Although in its dried form it appears dead, dry, hard and quite lifeless, given soil and moisture it will push out of the ground with power and leap forth with resurrective power to produce life.

Why not harness the life-giving power of the seed for your own health? Seeds contain all the important nutrients needed for human growth. They are excellent sources of protein and essential, unsaturated fatty acids needed for good health. Additionally, they are also on some of the best natural sources of lecithin, B-complex vitamins, vitamin E and minerals; all of which provide for the preservation of health and aid in premature aging!

Nuts are important to the diet as well. They provide many nutrients needed for the brain and nervous system. Nuts are actually seeds from which trees grow if they remain in the ground until germinated. When eaten raw in our diet, however, they provide protein, fat (the good kind), carbohydrates, potassium, sodium, calcium, phosphorus, Vitamins A, B, C & F just to name a few!

What may not be well known about seeds is that they contain pacifarins, an antibiotic resistance factor which increases our natural resistance to disease. Additionally, they contain auxones, a natural substance which helps to produce viatamins in the body and ultimately helps rejuvenate our cells, thereby preventing premature aging.

Whereas nuts can be used in their natural raw state, seeds should be germinated through the sprouting process. By doing so, you can enormously increase their nutritional value and release protein, vitamins, and complex carbohydrates into your body!

There are many interesting ways you can utilize nuts and seeds. For example, nuts can be made into "butter." By doing so, the nut is easily digested. You make butter at home by removing the skin of the nuts and then grinding them into a fine paste using a champion juicer or other such machine. By grinding the nuts, the B vitamins, minerals and proteins are broken down and more rapidly absorbed into the digestive tract and will aid in improving the appetite.

Another form of using nuts is through the creation of nut mylks. My favorite mylk is made out of almonds. This is a rich, non-acid-forming drink full of nourishment. Here's how I make the milk: Soak ½ cup of almonds overnight and drain the next morning. Throw them into your vita-mixer and add water almost to the top of the mixer. Blend on high for about 2 minutes, then strain the almond/water mixture through a seed cheese bag. Save the almond pulp in the bag to either dehydrate with vegetables or make into seed cheese. Take the liquid almond/water drainage and poor back into the vita-mixer. Add approximately 1 tsp of salt & 1 tsp. of vanilla. About 5-6 dates and blend for another 2-3 minutes. Refrigerate! Be sure to stir before using. Delicious!

The almond mylk resembles dairy milk in composition and appearance. It is so easily digested that I've heard it can be used in baby feeding due to its alkaline nature and the fact that it is high in protein and easy to assimilate and absorb.

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Nuts and Seeds for Health and Nutrition

Nuts:

Nuts are an important source of nutrients for both humans and wildlife.

A nut is defined as a hard-shelled fruit of some plants having an indehiscent seed. While a wide variety of dried seeds and fruits are called nuts, only a certain number of them are considered by biologists to be true nuts. Everyday common usage of the term often refers to any hard walled, edible kernel, as a nut.

Because nuts generally have a high oil content, they are a highly prized food and energy source. A large number of seeds are edible by humans and used in cooking, eaten raw, sprouted, or roasted as a snack food, or pressed for oil that is used in cookery and cosmetics.

Health Benefits from Nuts:

Many nuts are good sources of vitamins E and B2 (riboflavin, an antioxidant), and are rich in protein, folate, fiber, and essential minerals such as magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, copper, and selenium.

Studies have also revealed that people who consume nuts regularly are less likely to suffer from coronary heart disease (CHD). Nuts were first linked to protection against CHD in 1993. Clinical trials have found that consumption of various nuts such as almonds and walnuts can lower serum LDL cholesterol concentrations. Although nuts contain various substances thought to possess cardioprotective effects, scientists believe that their Omega 3 fatty acid profile is at least in part responsible for the hypolipidemic response observed in clinical trials. Nuts contain the essential fatty acids linoleic and linolenic acids, and the fats in nuts for the most part are unsaturated fats, including monounsaturated fats. Using nut butter instead of dairy butter on your toast will help reduce your cholesterol.

In addition to possessing cardioprotective effects, nuts generally have a very low glycemic index (GI). Consequently, dietitians frequently recommend nuts be included in diets prescribed for patients with insulin resistance problems such as diabetes mellitus type 2.

One study found that people who eat nuts live two to three years longer than those who do not. However, this may be because people who eat nuts tend to eat less junk food.

Seeds:

A seed is a small embryonic plant enclosed in a covering called the seed coat, usually with some stored food.

Many seeds are edible, especially seeds from cereals, legumes and nuts. Seeds also provide most cooking oils, many beverages and spices and some important food additives. In different seeds the seed embryo or the endosperm dominates and provides most of the nutrients. The storage proteins of the embryo and endosperm differ in their amino acid content and physical properties. For example the gluten of wheat, important in providing the elastic property to bread dough is strictly an endosperm protein.

The seeds of many legumes, including the common bean (Phaseolus vulgaris), contain proteins called lectins which can cause gastric distress if the beans are eaten without cooking. The common bean and many others, including the soybean, also contain trypsin inhibitors which interfere with the action of the digestive enzyme trypsin. Normal cooking processes degrade lectins and trypsin inhibitors to harmless forms.

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