Macadamia Nuts vs Brazil Nuts – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing macadamia nuts to Brazil nuts, we picked the Brazil nuts.

Why?

They’re a lot more nutrient dense! But watch out…

First, to do due diligence in terms of macros: Brazil nuts have twice as much protein and less fat, as well as being a little higher in fiber and slightly lower in carbs.

In terms of vitamins, Brazil nuts are about 10x higher in vitamin E, while macadamias are somewhat higher in several B-vitamins.

The category of minerals is where it gets interesting. Macadamia nuts are a little higher in iron and considerably higher in Manganese. But… Brazil nuts are a lot higher in calcium, copper, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc.

About that selenium… Specifically, it’s more than 5,000x higher, and a cup of Brazil nuts would give nearly 10,000x the recommended daily amount of selenium. Now, selenium is an essential mineral (needed for thyroid hormone production, for example), and at the RDA it’s good for good health. Your hair will be luscious and shiny. However, go much above that, and selenium toxicity becomes a thing, you may get sick, and it can cause your (luscious and shiny) hair to fall out. For this reason, it’s recommended to eat no more than 3–4 Brazil nuts per day.

In short… Brazil nuts are much more nutrient dense in general, and thus come out on top here. But, they’re so nutrient dense in the case of selenium, that careful moderation is advised.

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

Take care!

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  • When You Know What You “Should” Do (But Knowing Isn’t The Problem)

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    When knowing what to do isn’t the problem

    Often, we know what we need to do. Sometimes, knowing isn’t the problem!

    The topic today is going to be a technique used by therapeutic service providers to help people to enact positive changes in their lives.

    While this is a necessarily dialectic practice (i.e., it involves a back-and-forth dialogue), it’s still perfectly possible to do it alone, and that’s what we’ll be focussing on in this main feature.

    What is Motivational Interviewing?

    ❝Motivational interviewing (MI) is a technique that has been specifically developed to help motivate ambivalent patients to change their behavior.❞

    Read in full: Motivational Interviewing: An Evidence-Based Approach for Use in Medical Practice

    It’s mostly used for such things as helping people reduce or eliminate substance abuse, or manage their weight, or exercise more, things like that.

    However, it can be employed for any endeavour that requires motivation and sustained willpower to carry it through.

    Three Phases

    Motivational Interviewing traditionally has three phases:

    1. Exploring and understanding the issue at hand
    2. Guiding and deciding importance and goals
    3. Choosing and setting an action plan

    In self-practice, maybe you can already know and understand what it is that you want/need to change.

    If not, consider asking yourself such questions as:

    • What does a good day look like? What does a bad day look like?
    • If things are not good now, when were they good? What changed?
    • If everything were perfect now, what would that look like? How would you know?

    Once you have a clear idea of where you want to be, the next thing to know is: how much do you want it? And how confident are you in attaining it?

    This is a critical process:

    • Give your answers numerically on a scale from 0 to 10
    • Whatever your score, ask yourself why it’s not lower. For example, if you scored your motivation 4 and your confidence 2, what factors made your motivation not a lower number? What factors made your confidence not a lower number?
    • In the unlikely event that you gave yourself a 0, ask whether you can really afford to scrap the goal. If you can’t, find something, anything, to bring it to at least a 1.
    • After you’ve done that, then you can ask yourself the more obvious question of why your numbers aren’t higher. This will help you identify barriers to overcome.

    Now you’re ready to choose what to focus on and how to do it. Don’t bite off more than you can chew; it’s fine to start low and work up. You should revisit this regularly, just like you would if you had a counsellor helping you.

    Some things to ask yourself at this stage of the motivational self-interviewing:

    • What’s a good SMART goal to get you started?
    • What could stop you from achieving your goal?
      • How could you overcome that challenge?
      • What is your backup plan, if you have to scale back your goal for some reason?

    A conceptual example: if your goal is to stick to a whole foods Mediterranean diet, but you are attending a wedding next week, then now is the time to decide in advance 1) what personal lines-in-the-sand you will or will not draw 2) what secondary, backup plan you will make to not go too far off track.

    The same example in practice: wedding menus often offer meat/fish/vegetarian options, so you might choose the fish or vegetarian, and as for sugar and alcohol, you might limit yourself to “a small slice of wedding cake only; coffee/cheese option instead of dessert”, and “alcohol only for toasts”.

    Giving yourself the permission well in advance for small (clearly defined and boundaried!) diversions from the plan, will stop you from falling into the trap of “well, since today’s a cheat-day now…”

    Secret fourth stage

    The secret here is to keep going back and reassessing at regular intervals. Set your own calendar; you might want to start out weekly and then move to monthly when you’re more strongly on-track.

    For this reason, it’s good to keep a journal with your notes from your self-interview sessions, the scores you gave yourself, the goals and plans you set, etc.

    When conducting your regular review, be sure to examine what worked for you, and what didn’t (and why). That way, you can practice trial-and-improvement as you go.

    Want to learn more?

    We only have so much room here, but there are lots of resources out there.

    Here’s a high-quality page that:

    • explains motivational interviewing in more depth than we have room for here
    • offers a lot of free downloadable resource packs and the like

    Check it out: Motivational Interviewing Theory & Resources

    Enjoy!

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  • 4 ways to cut down on meat when dining out – and still make healthy choices

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    Many of us are looking for ways to eat a healthier and more sustainable diet. And one way to do this is by reducing the amount of meat we eat.

    That doesn’t mean you need to become a vegan or vegetarian. Our recent research shows even small changes to cut down on meat consumption could help improve health and wellbeing.

    But not all plant-based options are created equal and some are ultra-processed. Navigating what’s available when eating out – including options like tofu and fake meats – can be a challenge.

    So what are your best options at a cafe or restaurant? Here are some guiding principles to keep in mind when cutting down on meat.

    Mikhaylovskiy/Shutterstock

    Health benefits to cutting down

    Small amounts of lean meat can be part of a healthy, balanced diet. But the majority of Australians still eat more meat than recommended.

    Only a small percentage of Australians (10%) are vegetarian or vegan. But an increasing number opt for a flexitarian diet. Flexitarians eat a diet rich in fruits and vegetables, while still enjoying small amounts of meat, dairy, eggs and fish.

    Our recent research looked at whether the average Australian diet would improve if we swapped meat and dairy for plant-based alternatives, and the results were promising.

    The study found health benefits when people halved the amount of meat and dairy they ate and replaced them with healthy plant-based foods, like tofu or legumes. On average, their dietary fibre intake – which helps with feeling fuller for longer and digestive health – went up. Saturated fats – which increase our blood cholesterol levels, a risk factor for heart disease – went down.

    Including more fibre and less saturated fat helps reduce the risk of heart disease.

    Achieving these health benefits may be as simple as swapping ham for baked beans in a toastie for lunch, or substituting half of the mince in your bolognese for lentils at dinner.

    A hand holding a plate filled with vegetables and pita bread.
    Filling your plate with fibre-rich foods can help lower cholesterol. Wally Pruss/Shutterstock

    How it’s made matters

    For a long time we’ve known processed meats – such as ham, bacon and sausages – are bad for your health. Eating high amounts of these foods is associated with poor heart health and some forms of cancer.

    But the same can be true of many processed meat alternatives.

    Plant-based alternatives designed to mimic meat, such as sausages and burgers, have become readily available in supermarkets, cafes and restaurants. These products are ultra-processed and can be high in salt and saturated fat.

    Our study found when people replaced meat and dairy with ultra-processed meat alternatives – such as plant-based burgers or sausages – they ate more salt and less calcium, compared to eating meat or healthy plant-based options.

    So if you’re cutting down on meat for health reasons, it’s important to think about what you’re replacing it with. The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend eggs, legumes/beans, tofu, nuts and seeds.

    Tofu can be a great option. But we recommend flavouring plain tofu with herbs and spices yourself, as pre-marinated products are often ultra-processed and can be high in salt.

    What about when dining out?

    When you’re making your own food, it’s easier to adapt recipes or reduce the amount of meat. But when faced with a menu, it can be difficult to work out what is the best option.

    Two people eat noodles from takeaway bowls.
    Eating a range of colours is one way to ensure variety. Mikhail Nilov/Pexels

    Here are our four ways to make healthy choices when you eat out:

    1. Fill half your plate with vegetables

    When cutting down on meat, aim for half your plate to be vegetables. Try to also eat a variety of colours, such as leafy green spinach, red capsicum and pumpkin.

    When you’re out, this might look like choosing a vegetable-based entree, a stir-fry or ordering a side salad to have with your meal.

    2. Avoid the deep fryer

    The Australian Dietary Guidelines recommend limiting deep fried foods to once a week or less. When dining out, choose plant-based options that are sautéed, grilled, baked, steamed, boiled or poached – instead of those that are crumbed or battered before deep frying.

    This could mean choosing vegetarian dumplings that are steamed not fried, or poached eggs at brunch instead of fried. Ordering a side of roast vegetables instead of hot chips is also a great option.

    3. Pick wholegrains

    Scan the menu for wholegrain options such as brown rice, wholemeal pizza or pasta, barley, quinoa or wholemeal burger buns. Not only are they good sources of protein, but they also provide more dietary fibre than refined grains, which help keep you fuller for longer.

    4. If you do pick meat – choose less processed kinds

    You may not always want, or be able, to make a vegetarian choice when eating out and with other people. If you do opt for meat, it’s better to steer clear of processed options like bacon or sausages.

    If sharing dishes with other people, you could try adding unprocessed plant-based options into the mix. For example, a curry with lentils or chickpeas, or a vegetable-based pizza instead of one with ham or salami. If that’s not an option, try choose meat that’s a lean cut, such as chicken breast, or options which are grilled rather than fried.

    Laura Marchese, PhD candidate at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University and Katherine Livingstone, NHMRC Emerging Leadership Fellow and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Physical Activity and Nutrition, Deakin University

    This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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  • HRT & Your Heart

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    It’s Q&A Day at 10almonds!

    Have a question or a request? We love to hear from you!

    In cases where we’ve already covered something, we might link to what we wrote before, but will always be happy to revisit any of our topics again in the future too—there’s always more to say!

    As ever: if the question/request can be answered briefly, we’ll do it here in our Q&A Thursday edition. If not, we’ll make a main feature of it shortly afterwards!

    So, no question/request too big or small

    ❝So the reason that someone on estrogen has a slightly higher chance of a heart attack is…what? Is it just because there’s a higher body fat?❞

    There shouldn’t be higher chance of a heart attack once everything’s been taken into account, and indeed estrogen has some cardioprotective benefits, along with competing properties, e.g:

    ❝The cardiovascular effects of estrogen require a careful balancing act between possible advantages, such as enhanced lipid profiles and vascular function, and possible concerns, like increased thrombotic risk.

    Estrogen has cardioprotective properties in premenopausal women❞

    ~ Dr. Ayesha Javed et al.

    Source: The Relationship Between Myocardial Infarction and Estrogen Use: A Literature Review

    The risks and benefits of HRT are numerous, and/but a lot of the risks are associated only with animal-derived HRT rather bioidentitical, so you might want to check out our previous article:

    HRT: A Tale Of Two Approaches (Bioidentical vs Animal)

    Would you like this section to be bigger? If so, send us more questions!

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    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    This book is exactly what it says on the tin. We are given twenty-three techniques to relieve stress, stop negative spirals, declutter your mind, and focus on the present, in the calm pursuit of good mental health and productivity.

    The techniques are things like the RAIN technique above, so if you liked that, you’ll love this. Being a book rather than a newsletter, it also takes the liberty of going into much more detail—hence the 200 pages for 23 techniques. Unlike many books, it’s not packed in fluff either. It’s that perfect combination of “to the point” and “very readable”.

    If you’ve read this far into the review and you’re of two minds about whether or not this book could be useful to you, then you just might be overthinking it

    Check Out “Stop Overthinking” On Amazon Now!

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  • L-Theanine: What’s The Tea?

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    L-Theanine: What’s The Tea?

    We’ve touched previously on l-theanine, when this newsletter was new, and we had only a few hundred subscribers and the carefully organized format wasn’t yet what it is today.

    So now it’s time to give this potent dietary compound / nutritional supplement the “Monday Research Review” treatment…

    What is it?

    L-theanine is an amino acid found in tea. The human body can’t produce it, and/but it’s not essential for humans. It does have a lot of benefits, though. See for example:

    L-Theanine as a Functional Food Additive: Its Role in Disease Prevention and Health Promotion

    How does it work?

    L-theanine works by moderating and modulating the brain’s neurotransmitters.

    This sounds fancy, but basically it means: it doesn’t actually add anything in the manner of a drug, but it changes how we use what we have naturally.

    What does it do? Read on…

    It increases mental focus

    It has been believed that l-theanine requires the presence of caffeine to achieve this (i.e., it’s a combination-only effect). For example:

    The combination of L-theanine and caffeine improves cognitive performance and increases subjective alertness

    But as it turns out, when a group of researchers actually checked… This isn’t true, as Foxe et al. write:

    ❝We asked whether either compound alone, or both in combination, would affect performance of the task in terms of reduced error rates over time, and whether changes in alpha-band activity would show a relationship to such changes in performance. When treated with placebo, participants showed a rise in error rates, a pattern that is commonly observed with increasing time-on-task, whereas after caffeine and theanine ingestion, error rates were significantly reduced. The combined treatment did not confer any additional benefits over either compound alone, suggesting that the individual compounds may confer maximal benefits at the dosages employed❞

    See: Assessing the effects of caffeine and theanine on the maintenance of vigilance during a sustained attention task

    It promotes a calmly wakeful feeling of serenity

    Those are not words typically found in biopharmaceutical literature, but they’re useful here to convey:

    • L-theanine promotes relaxation without causing drowsiness
    • L-theanine promotes mental alertness without being a stimulant

    Here is where l-theanine really stands out from caffeine. If both substances promote mental focus, but one of them does it by making us “wired” and the other does it while simultaneously promoting calm, it makes the choice between them clearer!

    Read more: L-theanine, a natural constituent in tea, and its effect on mental state

    It relieves stress and anxiety

    Building on from the above, but there’s more: l-theanine relieves stress and anxiety in people experiencing stressful situations, without any known harmful side effects… This is something that sets it apart from a lot of anxiolytic (antianxiety) drugs!

    Here’s what a big systematic review of clinical trials had to say:

    Theanine consumption, stress and anxiety in human clinical trials: A systematic review

    L-theanine has other benefits too

    We’ve talked about some of the most popular benefits of l-theanine, and we can’t make this newsletter too long, but research also suggests that it…

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    Don’t Forget…

    Did you arrive here from our newsletter? Don’t forget to return to the email to continue learning!

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  • This Naked Mind – by Annie Grace

    10almonds is reader-supported. We may, at no cost to you, receive a portion of sales if you purchase a product through a link in this article.

    We’ve all read about the many, many, dangers of drinking. We’ve also probably all read about how to make the change to not drinking. Put things out of sight, tell your friends, have this rule, have this excuse (for not drinking) ready to give to people who challenge you, consider a support group, and so on.

    What Annie Grace offers in this #1 bestseller is different:

    A blend of mostly psychology and sociology, to examine the “liminal thinking” stages that funnel us to drink in the first place… and where that leads, and how to clamber back out of the pitcher plant we weren’t necessarily aware we were sliding into.

    While she kicks off citing Jung, from a psychological perspective more of this book is CBTish, as it pertains a lot to examining the process of:

    • belief—held and defended, based on the…
    • conclusion—drawn, often irrationally, from the…
    • experience—that we had upon acting on an…
    • observation—often mistaking an illusion for the underlying…
    • reality

    …and how we can and often do go wrong at each step, and how little of the previous steps we can perceive at any given time.

    What does this mean for managing/treating alcoholism or a tendency towards alchoholism?

    It means interrupting those processes in a careful, surgically precise fashion, so that suddenly… The thing has no more power over us.

    Whether you or a loved one struggle with a tendency to addiction (any addiction, actually, the advice goes the same), or are just curious about the wider factors at hand in the epidemiology of addiction, this book is for you.

    Get a copy of “This Naked Mind” from Amazon today!

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    Learn to Age Gracefully

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