The Benefits of Dry Roasted Nuts vs. Nuts Roasted in Oil

The Secret About Nuts:

Looking to increase your energy level and maintain a healthy heart? Who isn't?

To the above end, nutritionists almost always recommend a diet rich with foods containing lots of fiber, essential fatty acids, magnesium, and good proteins. 

(Of course, it helps if those foods taste great, too; otherwise it's unlikely we'll actually stick with our eating regimen, long-term). 

Fortunately, a food group like this does exist - and it even has plant sterols which can lower your cholesterol levels! 

Nuts are the one go-to food you can eat to get all these benefits. However, you must be sure that you eat roasted nuts rather than fried nuts. There is an enormous amount of salt and oil added onto nuts when they are fried, which eliminates most of the nutrients and adds bad fats to your body, changing them from a super-healthy food, to a super unhealthy food.   

Roasted nuts don't contain any oil. 

Between 60% and 80% of the calories found in nuts come from good fats. So, even though it may appear that the fat content is high when you look at the nutritional label, you can be sure that these are essential fats that your body needs to be healthy. Doctors have discovered that fatty acids like Omega 3 can reduce depression and lower your chances of getting heart disease.

So what would make some nut manufacturers want to fry their nuts if roasted is healthier?

Well, it all has to do with taste and money. 

First off, the abundance of salt and oils added to fried nuts tends to make them taste much stronger and produces that addictive, junk-food-like quality that permeates so much of our fast-food culture. And everyone knows that the more you eat, the more you buy.

Second, nut manufacturers find it much cheaper to produce fried nuts, since the nuts they use can be older and lower quality prior to frying. Non-discerning consumers are often taken in by the oil and salt, which masks the low quality of the nut. 

Nuts are wonderful tasting and naturally healthy nutritious. 

Always make sure the nuts you purchase are labeled as “dry roasted nuts.” Even if they are advertised as just “roasted,” check the ingredients on the back of the label and see if there are any oils listed there. If there are, then it means it was really fried and not roasted. 

Truly roasted nuts will be 100% dry roasted nuts and contain no oil ingredients.