Nuts are considered a superfood containing antioxidant levels that help keep a body healthy. Rich in fiber, protein and healthy fats, eating nuts will help you lose weight while filing you with vitamins and minerals. And your heart will be happy with all the unsaturated fatty acids and other nutrients found in nuts. Doctors say adding nuts to your regular diet improves artery health, reduces inflammation, lowers the risk of high blood pressure and unhealthy cholesterol levels. Just remember to eat nuts in moderation. Aim for four to six servings of unsalted nuts a week. One serving is a small handful or 1.5 ounces of whole nuts – or two tablespoons of nut butter.
At Vince & Joe’s we make our own nut butters fresh without any added ingredients so you get the best tasting nut butter. Of course we use the finest nuts as well. Try our creamy peanut butter, our honey roasted peanut butter or our almond butter. We also carry other brand favorites like SunButter made with Sunflower seeds, or Once Again Organic Cashew Butter among others. Using one of these butters compared to the big brand names means you lose the hydrogenated vegetable oils which prevent the separation that you see. You also lose the added sugars and depending on which brand you could be getting mono and diglycerides which convert to triglycerides and put you at risk for cardiovascular disease. We think it best to just go natural with our Vince & Joe’s brand. Watch for a new nut machine at our Clinton Township location soon.
Almonds | Walnuts | Pistachios | Brazil nuts | Cashews | Macadamia | Hazelnuts | Pecans
NUT FACTS
Not all nuts are well, nuts. Some of our favorite go-to snacks we call nuts – including those that make the best nut butters – aren’t actually nuts. Almonds, peanuts, pistachios, cashews and pecans are not really nuts at all. Looking at the whole plant, a true nut is a dry fruit with a single seed enclosed in a hard, non-splitting ovary wall. The hard shell of a true nut will not open on its own, like a walnut, chestnut, hazelnut or acorn.
Peanuts have two seeds, and grow in a pod making them part of the legume family. Almonds, cashews and pecans are seeds inside a drupe, or what is called a stone fruit. Unlike throwing out the pit in a fruit, like a peach, we eat the pit, or seed, in a drupe. Brazil nuts are neither legumes or drupes. When they grow there are 10-25 within a single pod. The wood like pod is heavy weighing around five pounds at maturity when it falls to the ground.
So why do we group them together and call them nuts? Probably because of the high protein structures and the small size and well, like a watermelon being a berry, or a tomato being a fruit when we think it’s a vegetable, fitting our foods into categories is harder than you think.