Nuts for health and nutritional benefits

¶ … Eating Nuts and Legumes" and evaluate the article. The article discusses why eating nuts and legumes can be part of a heart-healthy diet, and talks about some of the nutritional data on nuts and legumes that proves them to be beneficial to good nutrition. Specifically, the article singles out peanuts and macadamia nuts as sources of nutritional benefits, including lowering bad cholesterol and making the subjects feel fuller, longer when they ate them.

The publication where this article first appeared is the Journal of Nutrition in 2008. It is a well-respected journal for the American Society for Nutrition, a membership society that is "dedicated to bringing together the world's top researchers, clinical nutritionists and industry to advance our knowledge and application of nutrition for the sake of humans and animals" (Editors). It is the number three rated peer-reviewed journal in the nation in nutritional and dietetic topics, and it is indexed in several of the best medical journals and databases. Thus, the publication is extremely trustworthy and does not present information it has not researched, reviewed, and studied beforehand.

Unfortunately, the author is not available for this article, so it is not possible to assess them or their certifications and affiliations. However, it was presented at an Institute of Food Technologists meeting in 2008, indicating the presenter was a member or affiliated with the Institute, and a professional food technologist.

There does not seem to be any way that economic gain could come to this publisher for the information presented in this article. The article simply states facts about certain types of nuts and their nutritional value. If they offered the nuts for sale, or made outrageous health claims about the nuts, then there could be a problem, but the publication is simply offering knowledge and insight, and there is no way that economic gain could come to the publication. They could, however, urge nut producers or distributors to advertise in the magazine, but in my experience, peer-reviewed journals do not accept advertising unless it is for professional equipment or relates to professionals in some way, such as careers, and so advertising would not be available to nut retailers and wholesalers.

There is an official "feeding study" cited here, it states facts that were gained by the study, but does not note how many people participated. It does not they compared the diet with nuts to a "standard American diet." For example, the article notes, "Macadamia nuts are higher in monosaturated fats, compared with other tree nuts. A controlled feeding study was used to compare a heart-healthy diet with 1.5 ounces of macadamia nuts with a standard American diet" (Author not Available). They do have specific statistics about how much the nuts lowered the cholesterol in the diet compared with the cholesterol in a standard American diet. Clearly, this was a more casual study than a long-term diet study that looked at diet results for months or even years, but it was complex enough to show differences in the diet, which is the goal of most nutritional studies.

This was written by an expert in the field, and it may be assumed that they completed the research themselves, and so are familiar with the results and comparisons. It is unfortunate that it was published without credit; it would have been even more credible had the author's name been included, so research on the author and their credentials could be established. In addition, the article did not include credible sources, or cite anyone else in concert with the study, but it does appear that the author did do sufficient research, and it is entirely possible that the presenter was the author and did the research.

The title of the article is "Nuts for Health," by CBS News, and their medical analyst, Dr. Emily Senay. The article does agree that some nuts included in the diet are good for the diet, but it specifically mentions macadamia nuts as being too "fatty" to be included in the diet and it offers information on a wide variety of other nuts, too. The article was published online, and among other things, in notes, "Nuts are cholesterol-free and contain mostly mono- and polyunsaturated fats, the so-called good fats, as well as the beneficial omega-3 fatty acid like that found in fish" (Neal). This online article "dumbs down" the information and does not discuss a particular study or scientific measurement, it simply represents the facts because the doctor is saying they are true. This article supports the fact that nuts can be beneficial for the diet, but does not back it up with anything concrete or identifiable.