For the first 27 years of my life, I was convinced that I was allergic to nuts. I knew I was allergic to peanut butter, and for some reason, I was just convinced I was allergic to other nuts. Which was fine with me, because I had zero desire to eat them for the first 26 years of my life.
After I turned 26 and started living a healthier lifestyle, nuts kept coming up as a great healthy snack. Since the diet I was following included no dairy, that eliminated a lot of snacks. Do you realize how many healthy snacks include yogurt or cheese?! My trainer kept forgetting I was allergic to nuts and kept suggesting I have almonds or walnuts as a part of my snack.
A few years ago, I started having stomach troubles again and went for extensive allergy and gastrointestinal testing. The tests showed that I was, in fact, allergic to peanut butter, but not to other nuts.
Starting to eat something you’d thought was off-limits for your entire life is really weird. The first time I bought nuts felt like the first time I bought alcohol legally–can I really do this? Are you sure?
Since then, I’ve made up for lost time with my nut consumption.
And, no matter how bare my kitchen cabinets get, I always have almonds in them.
They’re a delicious, filling snack, and they’re good for you.
Some health benefits of almonds:
- high in monounsaturated fat (the good kind!)–which has been associated with reduced risk of heart disease
- have been proven to lower cholesterol
- contain potassium and magnesium
- eating them with a high-glycemic index meal has been proven to reduce the glycemic index of the meal
While almonds are good for you, some of the ones with extra salt and other ingredients aren’t quite as good for you. Recently, a number of Blue Diamond Almonds were certified by the American Heart Association to be heart-healthy. I love their almonds, and even more, their almond milk, so I was happy to see that their almonds are recognized as heart-healthy, since learning more about heart disease in women a few months ago.
- Whole Natural
- Roasted Salted
- Low Sodium
- Sea Salt
- No Salt
- Honey Dijon
Unfortunately, those chocolate ones weren’t. But they’re still tasty!
If you want to learn more about Blue Diamond Almonds and their AHA certification, you can join the Twitter chat tomorrow night at 8PM CST/9 PM EST by following #bluediamond.
What’s your favorite nut? Any good recipes incorporating almonds to share?
FitFluential LLC compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.
If you do a giveaway for salt & vinegar blue diamond almonds, I’ll enter. That’s all I’m sayin’.
No recipes, but the sliced almonds are good for a little crunch in a salad.
Nuts are something I always have on hand, too. They are great and easy to eat on the run.
The chocolate almonds are dangerous, they taste just like candy!
LOL I literally was dying when I read your post. I also use to tell people I was allergic to nuts. I am not but for some reason I thought I was.
Typically nuts are a very dangerous allergy. so much so that if you are allergic to peanuts, its very risky to eat any other kind of nut because they are all processed in the same factory and could be tainted. i imagine your allergy is not very severe if you are allowed to eat other kinds of nuts but you should make sure to read all labels.
Peanuts are actually a legume though, not a nut, right? My best friend is allergic to true nuts (like almonds, walnuts, cashews, etc.), but not to peanuts.
@Cathleen: True. I should update to say that…
If I had only known almonds were good for my heart, I would have bought bags from the supermarket yesterday. 🙂