You’re thinking about cleaning up your diet, maybe losing some weight. Why not try some almonds?

You keep hearing they’re good for you. Indeed, they’re said to come close to being a nutritionally complete food. Like an egg.

So you look at the nutrient profile.

More than 20 per cent protein. Great!

More than 12 per cent fibre. Woo hoo!

A 28 gram serving delivers 48 per cent of the recommended daily dose of vitamin E, 27 per cent of manganese, and 27 per cent of
magnesium. Jolly good show!

And then you see… 50 per cent fat! Forget it!

It doesn’t matter to you that of most of that fat is healthy fat. The sort that won’t clog your arteries and keeps you feeling full – which helps weight loss. Meh!

Plus, almonds are low in carbohydrates, including sugars, and are helpful when managing your blood sugars. Double meh!

Sure …  but you can’t get past the fat thing. Almonds! Forget about it!

Maybe this study will convince you

A new study led by the University of South Australia involved male and female participants, age 25-65, who were overweight or had obesity.

All participants were put on a calorie-restricted diet tailored to body size. They received regular support, encouraging the participants to stick at it. (Out of the 140 that initially enrolled, 106 did indeed stick at it.)

For half the participants, 15 per cent of their diet was made up of Californian almonds. As a snack food.

The other half were given carbohydrate-rich rice crackers and oven-baked fruit bars as their snack allotment.

Again, this constituted 15 per cent of their overall daily calorie intake. These foods are highly processed, with low nutritional value (empty calories) and potential negative health impacts.

After dieting for 12 weeks, the participants were put on a maintenance diet for six months, with support.

The results

As a weight loss exercise, the study was a success. Participants in both groups lost about seven kilograms – with the fatty almonds and carb-rich snacks having similar impact on their weight.

Professor Alison Coates, is Dean of Research, UniSA Allied Health & Human Performance, and is a co-author of the new paper. In an email, she told The New Daily:

“Both groups had equivalent reductions in weight and equivalent improvements in cardiometabolic health measures such as blood pressure, glucose control and lipids.

“The almond group had some additional benefits in lipoprotein fractions – these components have been linked with progression of atherosclerosis and so reducing these types of particles would long term lead to reduced cardiovascular disease risk.”

An interesting thought

This wasn’t discussed in the paper, but the study suggests weight loss might lessen the negative impacts of carb-rich processed foods – at least to some extent.

These foods, in the study, for one group, represented 15 per cent of the daily calorie intake for a relatively short amount of time.

According to a Deakin University study, ultra-processed foods represent 38.9 per cent of total energy intake in the average Australian diet, and is suspected of playing a role in the obesity epidemic, and possibly in early onset colo-rectal cancer. That’s a lot of chips and crackers.

Would it even be possible to lose weight while nearly 40 per cent of your diet is toxic?

Meanwhile, we suggest you swap your crackers and such for almonds at snack time.

Bottom line

UniSA researcher Dr Sharayah Carter, in a prepared statement, said:

“The study demonstrates how nuts can support a healthy diet for weight management and cardiometabolic health.

“Nuts, like almonds, are a great snack. They’re high in protein, fibre, and packed with vitamins and minerals, but they also have a high-fat content which people can associate with increased body weight.”

However, she said, nuts contain unsaturated fats – or healthy fats – “which can improve blood cholesterol levels, ease inflammation, and contribute to a healthy heart”.

Read here for more information about almonds.

The researchers have disclosed that the study was funded by the Almond Board of California.

They say this funding “source had no role in the design of this study or in the analysis and interpretation of the data”.