Walnuts vs Cashews – Which is Healthier?

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Our Verdict

When comparing walnuts to cashews, we picked the walnuts.

Why?

It was close! In terms of macros, walnuts have about 2x the fiber, while cashews have slightly more protein. In the specific category of fats, walnuts have more fat. Looking further into it: walnuts’ fats are mostly polyunsaturated, while cashews’ fats are mostly monounsaturated, both of which are considered healthy.

Notwithstanding being both high in calories, neither nut is associated with weight gain—largely because of their low glycemic indices (of which, walnuts enjoy the slightly lower GI, but both are low-GI foods)

When it comes to vitamins, walnuts have more of vitamins A, B2, B3 B6, B9, and C, while cashews have more of vitamins B1, B5, E, and K. Because of the variation in their respective margins of difference, this is at best a moderate victory for walnuts, though.

In the category of minerals, cashews get their day, as walnuts have more calcium and manganese, while cashews have more copper, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, selenium, and zinc.

In short: unless you’re allergic, we recommend enjoying both of these nuts (and others) for a full range of benefits. However, if you’re going to pick one, walnuts win the day.

Want to learn more?

You might like to read:

Why You Should Diversify Your Nuts

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  • War in Ukraine affected wellbeing worldwide, but people’s speed of recovery depended on their personality

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    The war in Ukraine has had impacts around the world. Supply chains have been disrupted, the cost of living has soared and we’ve seen the fastest-growing refugee crisis since World War II. All of these are in addition to the devastating humanitarian and economic impacts within Ukraine.

    Our international team was conducting a global study on wellbeing in the lead up to and after the Russian invasion. This provided a unique opportunity to examine the psychological impact of the outbreak of war.

    As we explain in a new study published in Nature Communications, we learned the toll on people’s wellbeing was evident across nations, not just in Ukraine. These effects appear to have been temporary – at least for the average person.

    But people with certain psychological vulnerabilities struggled to recover from the shock of the war.

    Tracking wellbeing during the outbreak of war

    People who took part in our study completed a rigorous “experience-sampling” protocol. Specifically, we asked them to report their momentary wellbeing four times per day for a whole month.

    Data collection began in October 2021 and continued throughout 2022. So we had been tracking wellbeing around the world during the weeks surrounding the outbreak of war in February 2022.

    We also collected measures of personality, along with various sociodemographic variables (including age, gender, political views). This enabled us to assess whether different people responded differently to the crisis. We could also compare these effects across countries.

    Our analyses focused primarily on 1,341 participants living in 17 European countries, excluding Ukraine itself (44,894 experience-sampling reports in total). We also expanded these analyses to capture the experiences of 1,735 people living in 43 countries around the world (54,851 experience-sampling reports) – including in Australia.

    A global dip in wellbeing

    On February 24 2022, the day Russia invaded Ukraine, there was a sharp decline in wellbeing around the world. There was no decline in the month leading up to the outbreak of war, suggesting the change in wellbeing was not already occurring for some other reason.

    However, there was a gradual increase in wellbeing during the month after the Russian invasion, suggestive of a “return to baseline” effect. Such effects are commonly reported in psychological research: situations and events that impact our wellbeing often (though not always) do so temporarily.

    Unsurprisingly, people in Europe experienced a sharper dip in wellbeing compared to people living elsewhere around the world. Presumably the war was much more salient for those closest to the conflict, compared to those living on an entirely different continent.

    Interestingly, day-to-day fluctuations in wellbeing mirrored the salience of the war on social media as events unfolded. Specifically, wellbeing was lower on days when there were more tweets mentioning Ukraine on Twitter/X.

    Our results indicate that, on average, it took around two months for people to return to their baseline levels of wellbeing after the invasion.

    Different people, different recoveries

    There are strong links between our wellbeing and our individual personalities.

    However, the dip in wellbeing following the Russian invasion was fairly uniform across individuals. None of the individual factors assessed in our study, including personality and sociodemographic factors, predicted people’s response to the outbreak of war.

    On the other hand, personality did play a role in how quickly people recovered. Individual differences in people’s recovery were linked to a personality trait called “stability”. Stability is a broad dimension of personality that combines low neuroticism with high agreeableness and conscientiousness (three traits from the Big Five personality framework).

    Stability is so named because it reflects the stability of one’s overall psychological functioning. This can be illustrated by breaking stability down into its three components:

    1. low neuroticism describes emotional stability. People low in this trait experience less intense negative emotions such as anxiety, fear or anger, in response to negative events
    2. high agreeableness describes social stability. People high in this trait are generally more cooperative, kind, and motivated to maintain social harmony
    3. high conscientiousness describes motivational stability. People high in this trait show more effective patterns of goal-directed self-regulation.

    So, our data show that people with less stable personalities fared worse in terms of recovering from the impact the war in Ukraine had on wellbeing.

    In a supplementary analysis, we found the effect of stability was driven specifically by neuroticism and agreeableness. The fact that people higher in neuroticism recovered more slowly accords with a wealth of research linking this trait with coping difficulties and poor mental health.

    These effects of personality on recovery were stronger than those of sociodemographic factors, such as age, gender or political views, which were not statistically significant.

    Overall, our findings suggest that people with certain psychological vulnerabilities will often struggle to recover from the shock of global events such as the outbreak of war in Ukraine.The Conversation

    Luke Smillie, Professor in Personality Psychology, The University of Melbourne

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

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  • Is white rice bad for me? Can I make it lower GI or healthier?

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    Rice is a culinary staple in Australia and around the world.

    It might seem like a given that brown rice is healthier than white and official public health resources often recommend brown rice instead of white as a “healthy swap”.

    But Australians definitely prefer white rice over brown. So, what’s the difference, and what do we need to know when choosing rice?

    Dragne Marius/Unsplash

    What makes rice white or brown?

    Rice “grains” are technically seeds. A complete, whole rice seed is called a “paddy”, which has multiple parts:

    1. the “hull” is the hard outer layer which protects the seed
    2. the “bran”, which is a softer protective layer containing the seed coat
    3. the “germ” or the embryo, which is the part of the seed that would develop into a new plant if was germinated
    4. the “endosperm”, which makes up most of the seed and is essentially the store of nutrients that feeds the developing plant as a seed grows into a plant.

    Rice needs to be processed for humans to eat it.

    Along with cleaning and drying, the hard hulls are removed since we can’t digest them. This is how brown rice is made, with the other three parts of the rice remaining intact. This means brown rice is regarded as a “wholegrain”.

    White rice, however, is a “refined” grain, as it is further polished to remove the bran and germ, leaving just the endosperm. This is a mechanical and not a chemical process.

    What’s the difference, nutritionally?

    Keeping the bran and the germ means brown rice has more magnesium, phosphorus, potassium B vitamins (niacin, folate, riboflavin and pyridoxine), iron, zinc and fibre.

    The germ and the bran also contain more bioactives (compounds in foods that aren’t essential nutrients but have health benefits), like oryzanols and phenolic compounds which have antioxidant effects.

    Brown rice
    Brown rice is cleaned and dried and the hard hulls are removed. Sung Min/Shutterstock

    But that doesn’t mean white rice is just empty calories. It still contains vitamins, minerals and some fibre, and is low in fat and salt, and is naturally gluten-free.

    White and brown rice actually have similar amounts of calories (or kilojoules) and total carbohydrates.

    There are studies that show eating more white rice is linked to a higher risk of type 2 diabetes. But it is difficult to know if this is down to the rice itself, or other related factors such as socioeconomic variables or other dietary patterns.

    What about the glycaemic index?

    The higher fibre means brown rice has a lower glycaemic index (GI), meaning it raises blood sugar levels more slowly. But this is highly variable between different rices within the white and brown categories.

    The GI system uses low (less than 55), medium (55–70) and high (above 70) categories. Brown rices fall into the low and medium categories. White rices fall in the medium and high.

    There are specific low-GI types available for both white and brown types. You can also lower the GI of rice by heating and then cooling it. This process converts some of the “available carbohydrates” into “resistant starch”, which then functions like dietary fibre.

    Are there any benefits to white rice?

    The taste and textural qualities of white and brown rices differ. White rice tends to have a softer texture and more mild or neutral flavour. Brown rice has a chewier texture and nuttier flavour.

    So, while you can technically substitute brown rice into most recipes, the experience will be different. Or other ingredients may need to be added or changed to create the desired texture.

    Removing more of the outer layers may also reduce the levels of contaminants such as pesticides.

    We don’t just eat rice

    Friends eat dinner on a rooftop terrace
    You’ll likely have vegetables and protein with your rice. Chay_Tee/Shutterstock

    Comparing white and brown rice seems like an easy way to boost nutritional value. But just because one food (brown rice) is more nutrient-dense doesn’t make the other food (white rice) “bad”.

    Ultimately, it’s not often that we eat just rice, so we don’t need the rice we choose to be the perfect one. Rice is typically the staple base of a more complex dish. So, it’s probably more important to think about what we eat with rice.

    Adding vegetables and lean proteins to rice-based dishes can easily add the micronutrients, bioactives and fibre that white rice is comparatively lacking, and this can likely do more to contribute to diet quality than eating brown rice instead.

    Emma Beckett, Adjunct Senior Lecturer, Nutrition, Dietetics & Food Innovation – School of Health Sciences, UNSW Sydney

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

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  • Lycopene’s Benefits For The Gut, Heart, Brain, & More

    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.

    What Doesn’t Lycopene Do?

    Lycopene is an antioxidant carotenoid famously found in tomatoes; it actually appears in even higher levels in watermelon, though. If you are going to get it from tomato, know that cooking improves the lycopene content rather than removing it (watermelon, on the other hand, can be enjoyed as-is and already has the higher lycopene content).

    Antioxidant properties

    Let’s reiterate the obvious first, for the sake of being methodical and adding a source. Lycopene is a potent antioxidant with multiple health benefits:

    Lycopene: A Potent Antioxidant with Multiple Health Benefits

    …and as such, it does all the things you might reasonably expect and antioxidant to do. For example…

    Anti-inflammatory properties

    In particular, it regulates macrophage activity, reducing inflammation while improving immune response:

    Lycopene Regulates Macrophage Immune Response through the Autophagy Pathway Mediated by RIPK1

    As can be expected of most antioxidants and anti-inflammatory agents, it also has…

    Anticancer properties

    Scientific papers tend to be “per cancer type”, so we’re just going to give one example, but there’s pretty much evidence for its utility against most if not all types of cancer. We’re picking prostate cancer though, as it’s one that’s been studied the most in the context of lycopene intake—in this study, for example, it was found that men who enjoyed at least two servings of lycopene-rich tomato sauce per week were 30% less likely to develop prostate cancer than those who didn’t:

    Dietary lycopene intake and risk of prostate cancer defined by ERG protein expression

    If you’d like to see something more general, however, then check out:

    Potential Use of Tomato Peel, a Rich Source of Lycopene, for Cancer Treatment

    It also fights Candida albicans

    Ok, this is not (usually) so life-and-death as cancer, but reducing our C. albicans content (specifically: in our gut) has a lot of knock-on effects for other aspects of our health, so this isn’t one to overlook:

    Lycopene induces apoptosis in Candida albicans through reactive oxygen species production and mitochondrial dysfunction

    The title does not make this clear, but yes: this does mean it has an antifungal effect. We mention this because often cellular apoptosis is good for an overall organism, but in this case, it simply kills the Candida.

    It’s good for the heart

    A lot of studies focus just on triglyceride markers (which lycopene improves), but more tellingly, here’s a 10-year observational study in which diets rich in lycopene were associated to a 17–26% lower risk of heart disease:

    Relationship of lycopene intake and consumption of tomato products to incident CVD

    …and a 39% overall reduced mortality in, well, we’ll let the study title tell it:

    Higher levels of serum lycopene are associated with reduced mortality in individuals with metabolic syndrome

    …which means also:

    It’s good for the brain

    As a general rule of thumb, what’s good for the heart is good for the brain (because the brain needs healthy blood flow to stay healthy, and is especially vulnerable when it doesn’t get that), and in this case that rule of thumb is also borne out by the post hoc evidence, specifically yielding a 31% decreased incidence of stroke:

    Dietary and circulating lycopene and stroke risk: a meta-analysis of prospective studies

    Is it safe?

    As a common food product, it is considered very safe.

    If you drink nothing but tomato juice all day for a long time, your skin will take on a reddish hue, which will go away if you stop getting all your daily water intake in tomato juice.

    In all likelihood, even if you went to extremes, you would get sick from the excess of vitamin A (generally present in the same foods) sooner than you’d get sick from the excess of lycopene.

    Want to try some?

    We don’t sell it, and also we recommend simply enjoying tomatoes, watermelons, etc, but if you do want a supplement, here’s an example product on Amazon

    Enjoy!

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  • 28-Day FAST Start Day-by-Day – by Gin Stephens

    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 have previously reviewed Gin Stephens’ other book, “Fast. Feast. Repeat.”, so what’s so special about this one that it deserves reviewing too?

    This one is all about troubleshooting the pitfalls that many people find when taking up intermittent fasting.

    To be clear: the goal here is not a “28 days and yay you did it, put that behind you now”, but rather “28 days and you are now intermittently fasting easily each day and can keep it up without difficulty”. As for the difficulties that may arise early in the 28 days…

    Not just issues of willpower, but also the accidental breaks. For example, some artificial sweeteners, while zero-calorie, trigger an insulin response, which breaks the fast on the metabolic level (avoiding that is the whole point of IF). Lots of little tips like that peppered through the book help the reader to stop accidentally self-sabotaging their progress.

    The author does talk about psychological issues too, and also how it will feel different at first while the liver is adapting, than later when it has already depleted its glycogen reserves and the body must burn body fat instead. Information like that makes it easier to understand that some initial problems (hunger, getting “hangry”, feeling twitchy, or feeling light-headed) will last only a few weeks and then disappear.

    So, understanding things like that makes a big difference too.

    The style of the book is simple and clear pop-science, with lots of charts and bullet points and callout-boxes and the like; it makes for very easy reading, and very quick learning of all the salient points, of which there are many.

    Bottom line: if you’ve tried intermittent fasting but struggled to make it stick, this book can help you get to where you want to be.

    Click here to check out 28-Day FAST Start, and start!

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  • Mango vs Papaya – Which is Healthier?

    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.

    Our Verdict

    When comparing mango to papaya, we picked the mango.

    Why?

    Both are great! But there are some things to set them apart:

    In terms of macros, this one’s not so big of a difference. They are equal in fiber, while mango has more protein and slightly more carbs. They are both low glycemic index, so we’ll call this one a tie, or the slenderest nominal win for papaya.

    When it comes to vitamins, mango has more of vitamins A, B1, B3, B5, B7, B9, E, K, and choline, while papaya has more vitamin C. However, a cup of mango already gives the RDA of vitamin C, so at this point, it’s not even really much of a bonus that papaya has more. In any case, a clear and overwhelming win in the vitamins category for mango.

    As for minerals, this one’s closer; mango has more copper, manganese, phosphorus, and zinc, while papaya has more calcium, iron, and magnesium. Still, a 4:3 win for mango.

    Adding these up makes for a clear win for mango. However, one extra thing to bear in mind about both:

    Both of these fruits interact with warfarin and many other anticoagulants. So if you’re taking those, you might want to skip these, or at least consult with your doctor/pharmacist for input on your personal situation.

    Aside from that; enjoy both; diversity is good! But mango is the more nutritionally dense, and thus the winner here.

    Want to learn more?

    You might like to read:

    5 Ways To Make Your Smoothie Blood Sugar Friendly (Avoid the Spike!)

    Take care!

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  • Constipation increases your risk of a heart attack, new study finds – and not just on the toilet

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    If you Google the terms “constipation” and “heart attack” it’s not long before the name Elvis Presley crops up. Elvis had a longstanding history of chronic constipation and it’s believed he was straining very hard to poo, which then led to a fatal heart attack.

    We don’t know what really happened to the so-called King of Rock “n” Roll back in 1977. There were likely several contributing factors to his death, and this theory is one of many.

    But after this famous case researchers took a strong interest in the link between constipation and the risk of a heart attack.

    This includes a recent study led by Australian researchers involving data from thousands of people.

    Elvis Presley was said to have died of a heart attack while straining on the toilet. But is that true? Kraft74/Shutterstock

    Are constipation and heart attacks linked?

    Large population studies show constipation is linked to an increased risk of heart attacks.

    For example, an Australian study involved more than 540,000 people over 60 in hospital for a range of conditions. It found constipated patients had a higher risk of high blood pressure, heart attacks and strokes compared to non-constipated patients of the same age.

    A Danish study of more than 900,000 people from hospitals and hospital outpatient clinics also found that people who were constipated had an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes.

    It was unclear, however, if this relationship between constipation and an increased risk of heart attacks and strokes would hold true for healthy people outside hospital.

    These Australian and Danish studies also did not factor in the effects of drugs used to treat high blood pressure (hypertension), which can make you constipated.

    Man sitting on toilet, clutching tummy with one hand, holding toilet roll in other
    Researchers have studied thousands of people to see if there’s a link between constipation and heart attacks. fongbeerredhot/Shutterstock

    How about this new study?

    The recent international study led by Monash University researchers found a connection between constipation and an increased risk of heart attacks, strokes and heart failure in a general population.

    The researchers analysed data from the UK Biobank, a database of health-related information from about half a million people in the United Kingdom.

    The researchers identified more than 23,000 cases of constipation and accounted for the effect of drugs to treat high blood pressure, which can lead to constipation.

    People with constipation (identified through medical records or via a questionnaire) were twice as likely to have a heart attack, stroke or heart failure as those without constipation.

    The researchers found a strong link between high blood pressure and constipation. Individuals with hypertension who were also constipated had a 34% increased risk of a major heart event compared to those with just hypertension.

    The study only looked at the data from people of European ancestry. However, there is good reason to believe the link between constipation and heart attacks applies to other populations.

    A Japanese study looked at more than 45,000 men and women in the general population. It found people passing a bowel motion once every two to three days had a higher risk of dying from heart disease compared with ones who passed at least one bowel motion a day.

    How might constipation cause a heart attack?

    Chronic constipation can lead to straining when passing a stool. This can result in laboured breathing and can lead to a rise in blood pressure.

    In one Japanese study including ten elderly people, blood pressure was high just before passing a bowel motion and continued to rise during the bowel motion. This increase in blood pressure lasted for an hour afterwards, a pattern not seen in younger Japanese people.

    One theory is that older people have stiffer blood vessels due to atherosclerosis (thickening or hardening of the arteries caused by a build-up of plaque) and other age-related changes. So their high blood pressure can persist for some time after straining. But the blood pressure of younger people returns quickly to normal as they have more elastic blood vessels.

    As blood pressure rises, the risk of heart disease increases. The risk of developing heart disease doubles when systolic blood pressure (the top number in your blood pressure reading) rises permanently by 20 mmHg (millimetres of mercury, a standard measure of blood pressure).

    The systolic blood pressure rise with straining in passing a stool has been reported to be as high as 70 mmHg. This rise is only temporary but with persistent straining in chronic constipation this could lead to an increased risk of heart attacks.

    Doctor wearing white coat checking patient's blood pressure
    High blood pressure from straining on the toilet can last after pooing, especially in older people. Andrey_Popov/Shutterstock

    Some people with chronic constipation may have an impaired function of their vagus nerve, which controls various bodily functions, including digestion, heart rate and breathing.

    This impaired function can result in abnormalities of heart rate and over-activation of the flight-fight response. This can, in turn, lead to elevated blood pressure.

    Another intriguing avenue of research examines the imbalance in gut bacteria in people with constipation.

    This imbalance, known as dysbiosis, can result in microbes and other substances leaking through the gut barrier into the bloodstream and triggering an immune response. This, in turn, can lead to low-grade inflammation in the blood circulation and arteries becoming stiffer, increasing the risk of a heart attack.

    This latest study also explored genetic links between constipation and heart disease. The researchers found shared genetic factors that underlie both constipation and heart disease.

    What can we do about this?

    Constipation affects around 19% of the global population aged 60 and older. So there is a substantial portion of the population at an increased risk of heart disease due to their bowel health.

    Managing chronic constipation through dietary changes (particularly increased dietary fibre), increased physical activity, ensuring adequate hydration and using medications, if necessary, are all important ways to help improve bowel function and reduce the risk of heart disease.

    Vincent Ho, Associate Professor and clinical academic gastroenterologist, Western Sydney University

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

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