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I'm a registered nutritionist and the founder of the Healthy Eating Hub and the Healthy Eating Clinic. I hope you're all having a wonderful day. Fun fact about me on the topic of nuts. What we're telling about on the show today is that my favorite nuts are peanuts, cashews, pistachios, and macadamia.
And how this beautiful memory when I was a kid, my grandparents had a really big macadamia tree in their backyard, and I used a lot of climbing trees. And I would climb the macadamia tree and collect the nuts and then sit for hours on the back porch on the concrete with a little hammer, cracking open the macadamia's, salvaging whatever hole nut I managed to extract from its shell, bringing them inside to show my mom and dad, and of course eating the ones that I've subsequently crushed. Because I hit them too, I would have a really positive food association with macadamia, just because of this memory, I really enjoy them. So on to today's topic, which is based on and ask me anything episode where a listener of the daily dollop submits a question, and I answer it on the show.
So if you've got a question that you would like me to answer on the daily dollop, all you have to do is head to my social pages. So Facebook, it's Kate Freeman nutritionist, and on Instagram, it's at KF nutrition. Go to direct message me, hit the microphone at the bottom and record your 60 second question, and I will answer your question on the show. So let's hear today's question.
Okay, my favorite is Rebecca. And I have been loving it with him today. I had questions for you. And one of those was I had heard some real lines that if you take walnuts and you rush them, it turns to good facts and bad, that's not good.
I know that goes against these rules and nutrition. That's one of the things that we'd be looking to reduce the amount of rosin. And that's an adi, and the other question I had was about two of those. Like, I heard that GFC, that's a good answer.
What makes them super, what is it about them that makes them so incredible that we should be having a real deal? Thank you so much. Amazing questions, Rebecca. Thank you so much for submitting them.
I actually did note, dude. I didn't know the answer to your question at first because in my 16 year career as an nutritionist, I've never heard that that you can't even roast the nuts because it turns to good facts into bad guts. And I thought that was a fascinating question. And so I have spent a good hour doing some research and reading some scientific papers to find out about what happens to nuts when we roast them.
And the answer is no, I'm just surprised you. But before we get stuck into the science, I just want to talk briefly about the health benefits of nuts. They are really, really good for you. They're rich in micro nutrients, rich in mono and polyunsaturated fats, antioxidants, fiber for the gut.
They're really, really great. And in fact, nuts and their subsequent oils are known to contain bioactive and health promoting substances. And so I have long been considered to serve as an important part of our diet. And there is evidence from epidemiological studies, which is just looking at populations, which indicates that the consumption of nuts may help protect against cardiovascular disease.
And it's thought that it's their lupid component, so their fat component and their particularly their unsaturated fatty acids that helps offer this protection for cardiovascular disease. So nuts are great to be included regularly in your diet. And in fact, even though nuts are rich in fat, further studies show that the fat content is not associated with weight gain or high BMI. So when we study populations with high nut intakes that this is not associated with weight gain.
And so nuts are absolutely fine to be in daily and in fact, you know, 30 grams of nuts every day can decrease your risk of developing cardiovascular disease. And I'll find you some good nutrition. So definitely include them when it comes to roasting nuts during the roasting process, a really pleasant aroma and taste is developed, which is why we like to eat them roasted. And that's why a lot of manufacturing companies roast nuts to them sell.
So all right, we like to eat them roasted. They're a little bit nicer when they're roasted. So I've learned to study in the show notes that actually looked at the composition of hazelnuts, almonds, macadamia nuts, pistachios, and walnuts regarding health promoting and potentially harmful compounds before and after roasting under different time and temperature conditions. So a super cool study.
So definitely check that out and have a good read of it. So this study found that analysis of the fatty acid profile of the five different nut varieties revealed no differences between roasting and roasting nuts. So right there, we know that good facts were not turned into bad facts and that the profile of the fatty acid in terms of the types of fatty acids found in the nuts didn't differ. Another interesting fact that the study found is that the precursors of trans fatty acids which we know are detrimental to health have been detected in only very small amounts in nuts.
So 0.01 percent in both raw and roasted nuts independent of the roasting process. So roasting doesn't increase the precursors of these trans fatty acids or trans fatty acids in general. And so overall, there's no influence of fatty acid composition or the formation of trans fatty acids due to roasting. So that's really cool.
And basically overall, the study concluded that the lower or medium temperature roasting of nuts may be favorable providing a balance between health promoting and potentially harmful nut compounds as well as for obtaining desired sensory properties. So medium to lower temperatures is what creates a tastier roasted nut and it's also the most favorable for providing that balance in the compounds to make the nut healthier or not healthier. So really, the conclusion is that no roasting does not turn good facts into bad facts. So about how you absolutely enjoy your roasted walnuts if you like them roasted or eat them raw into the day it actually doesn't matter.
Which is super cool. I think so too, other studies as well as just for some more reading. One of them is the study in cashews which found that roasting had little or no effect on the fatty acid profiles of the oils that were then subsequently extracted from the nuts and then tested. They also found that roasting of whole cashew nuts actually improved the oxidative stability of the extracted oils.
So that's really cool too. And another study just looking at antioxidant composition found that roasted nuts had 14 percent more total polyphenols in raw nuts and the percentage of free polyphenols decreased with roasting. These two results indicate that high-drawals is took place during roasting. But overall it actually is matching the conclusion from other studies that roasting actually overall increases antioxidant activity of nuts.
So there you go. So we don't even get the detrimental effect on the antioxidant capacity with roasting. So that one is not better than the other from a nutritional perspective. The only thing I would say is that roasting is better just from a taste and texture and aroma perspective.
And so if it helps you eat them then choosing roasted nuts is absolutely fine. So that brings me into the second part of Rebecca's question on superfoods. And I love this question because it's kind of starting to question popular culture in the way that we view food and things like that. And superfood has been thrown around for many many years.
I actually got back to the archives on things that I've written on superfoods and I was actually popped onto the front cover of Canberra City News a really long time ago back in 2014. Can I believe that seven years ago? Oh my gosh, so long ago. I actually looked really tanned in the photo.
I'm also just coming from holidays. There you go. But I'll put the link to that if you want to say my public health moment. But I talk about superfoods in this volume of the Canberra City News.
But basically superfoods don't have an agreed upon definition. So talk to any nutritionist dietitians, food scientists, right? There's no agreed definition of water superfoods. So there's a problem right there.
And certainly if you just look around in marketing and blogs and people pushing particular agendas, that the definition of superfood would vary considerably between all those sources and often quite biased because depending on who's pushing what definition is that they have a particular agenda that they're trying to push with that. Overall though, there was a general consensus that a superfood contains superior amounts of nutrition. Vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, essential fats, etc. Compared to other foods in their class.
So for example, broccoli is superior to zucchini and green beans when it comes to vitamins and other phytochemicals, which when I say phytochemicals, I'm just meaning plant or chemical that promotes health, which can potentially make it super compared to these other vegetables. But I don't like that because it makes me think that what's the point of eating the zucchini and green beans, we may just like folks are also broccoli. But one of the things that makes diet healthy is variety. And so a key principle of nutrition is including a variety of foods and in particular plant-based foods like vegetables in your diet, they can offer a spectrum of nutrients.
And so just because broccoli is more nutrient dense compared to zucchini and green beans doesn't mean that that other two are not worth eating. And I would actually say that all vegetables are superfoods from the perspective of that they contain a high amount of nutritional bang for their calorie bucks. So they're high nutrients that really low in energy. So overall, superfoods are high in vitamins, minerals or essential fats that often don't have an excessive energy density and they're high in other health-promoting components like antioxidants, polyphenols, etc.
And I think you know like in our current culture, where the overconsumption of energy dense, low nutrient ultra-processed foods is really prevalent, that superfoods are a thing because we're all trying to find this magical to health. But if you think about superfoods just being food that have a high amount of nutrition for the energy that they contain some nutrient dense foods, then you'll see that superfoods can have a quite a spectrum of mostly whole, minimally processed foods from all the food groups. And so, GSCs, which is what we're about to mention in her question, it's just popped up as a superfood because when it was first brought to market, it was found to be a really good source of omega-3 fatty acids, which, you know, mostly found in fish and seafood, but if you're not a fish and seafood, it can be tricky to get omega-3 into your diet. GSCs are one way to do that.
They're also rich in insoluble fiber, which is great for gut health. And I don't really know that as a why they got double to superfood, but they are nutrient dense and great to include in your diet. But walnuts are a good source of omega-3 and soluble fiber. Like there's lots of good things in all seeds and nuts that we can include in our diet.
So I think that there's a big marketing campaign that came to the GSCs, eating the market, and we're like, let's call them a superfood. And I think that most of the foods that would be double to superfood these days are double that by the company that's selling the product of these foods. And so we just like the idea of eating these foods. But in all food groups, if we were to map the nutrient composition of foods, there would be some foods that are superior to others in the same group.
But overall, good nutrition is eating a wide variety of foods from all the food groups, and, yeah, just enjoying them in the way that you like to eat them. But thank you so much for those questions, Rebecca. Thank you guys. Today, eat your nuts, roasted or not, include some superfoods, okay, vegetables in your diet.
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