Walnuts for your Brain and Good Mood

Perhaps you have already noticed that a walnut looks like the human brain.

This looks like a coincidence, but some ancient wisdom sources suggest that it's much more than that. One of the biggest benefits of eating more walnuts is that it supports your most important organ - the brain. Walnuts have been scientifically proven to be a great food for the brain, and are better at this among all the other nuts.

Of course if our brain works faster and better, it also improves our mood, and we feel healthier, with more energy. This happens, thanks to the omega-3 fats the walnuts contain. Other remarkable things that omega-3 foods can do for us are that they are also known to improve our heart health, and fight heart disease by reducing the levels of triglyceride and the dangerous plaque formation in the arteries.

As we have mentioned many times in this blog - walnuts can be a great tool for weight management. According to some studies eating a few walnuts before meals decreases our perceived level of hunger. If you are interested to know more facts about that - check our previous blog posts on this topic, which include information about theory, experiments and other facts.

Growing And Processing Walnuts

The process from planting a walnut orchard to delivering fresh walnuts to the market is very long and requires strict care, meeting safety standards and quality control. It includes steps from propagation, to harvest, to packer, and finally to market.

Harvesting

Harvesting takes place from August (when the drying green hulls are starting to split so the inshell walnuts can be removed) to November. The first thing to be taken care of is that the orchard floor should be swept clean. Then, mechanical shakers shake each tree from the orchard and tens of thousands of walnuts fall to the ground. These walnuts are carefully swept into windrows to allow harvester machines to pick them up. Then the cleaning process starts

Processing

The outer green husk is removed by a huller and the nut is dehydrated to the required moisture level, which is 8%. This preserves the quality of the walnut during storage. Walnuts are stored until needed for cracking.

Packing

Walnuts are transported to a packing plant where they are prepared separetely for two different markets - inshell and shelled.

Inshell Walnuts

Following drying, sizing of the inshell nut occurs. Different countries use different size charts.

Shelled Walnuts

Walnuts are removed from storage as needed and sent to the shelling department where they are cracked. Kernels are screened into a series of sizes, air-separated from shells, and moved through electronic color graders and shell sorters.

After that phase, they are hand-sorted and certified by for quality and then they are ready for packing. After being shelled, walnut kernels go through quality control which confirms that they are clean, well-dried, and of specified color. Tolerances for total and special defects are specified for each grade. Laboratory tests, both chemical and microbiological, are conducted to meet strict regulatory agency and food safety requirements.

Packaging

The walnuts are produced in a wide variety of sizes, color grades and combinations of sizes and colors to meet the specifications of any industrial requirements. Commercial product meets the same high quality standards as those sold directly to the local markets.

Facts about Losing Weight with Walnuts

In the past few years, eating walnuts has been associated with feelings of fullness. A recent study conducted by professors at the Harvard-affiliated Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) found what's actually happening in the brain to achieve this.

Led by Drs. Olivia M. Farr and Christos Mantzoros, the scientists used the help of 10 volunteers to live at the Clinical Research Center for two five-day sessions. By having them live there during these sessions, the professors could precisely analyze their nutrition.

During one of the sessions, the volunteers consumed smoothies containing 48 grams of walnuts each day (the daily dose, recommended by ADA). And during the other session, they were given placebo smoothies, nutritionally comparable to the smoothies from the first test which also tasted the same, but containing no walnuts.

As has been the case in other studies, the volunteers reported feeling less hungry during the week that they consumed the Walnuts smoothies. Taking things a step further, each person was placed in an Functional magnetic resonance imaging machine on the fifth day of the session, to have their brains scanned. In that machine, they were shown images, including shots of neutral objects, photos of foods such as hamburgers and desserts, along with pictures of less desirable but healthier foods. When the volunteers who had been drinking the walnut smoothies saw the desirable food pictures, increased activity was detected in an area of their brains known as right insula. This region is associated with the regulation of hunger and cravings.

Walnut Diet for Improvement of the Endothelial Function

Endothelial dysfunction, which is an early event in the development of vascular disease, is commonly associated with atherosclerosis and its risk factors. Various recent studies show that coronary endothelial dysfunction predicts CAD events in the near future. Vascular reactivity can be improved by dietary factors such as marine n-3 fatty acids, and antioxidants. To test the hypothesis that walnut intake would improve endothelial function, the scinetists performed a randomized, crossover feeding trial by substituting a walnut-enriched diet for a healthy Mediterranean-type diet for effects on brachial artery vasomotor function and circulating markers of endothelial activation.

Before the study, the general recommendations of a Mediterranean-type, cholesterol-lowering diet were reinforced in all eligible subjects, and baseline data were collected after 1 month. The self-reported nutrient contents of the baseline diet showed good adherence to dietary advice.
Of all participants randomly assigned to dietary intervention, 98% completed both study phases. The rest of them withdrew for personal reasons. According to participants’ reports and recounts of empty packages, compliance with walnut ingestion was 100%. Walnut consumption every day was tolerated by all subjects. The walnut meal in a background walnut diet was associated with significant improvement in brachial artery EDV. The walnut diet also attenuated endothelial activation, as suggested by the reduction in VCAM-1 levels.

Walnuts for Stress Reduction Diets

It`s well known that the nutrients in some types of nuts can help protect your body against the damaging physical effects of being stressed out. Some studies reveal that nuts rich in alpha-linolenic acid, like walnuts, had a heart-protective benefit during times of acute stress - which is known to cause cardiovascular strain.

(Also various sources indicate that almonds, because of their vitamin E, vitamin B and magnesium content can bolster your immune system when you're stressed)
A review of other studies about eating nuts found that people who added nuts to their diets and who replaced other foods with nuts lost more weight and reduced their waist sizes by more than half an inch

Serving Walnuts

Although walnuts have always been considered a significant source of calories and nutrients for many centuries, nuts generally fell out of favor with health-conscious Americans during the low-fat diet that were popular in the 80s. Today, walnuts are recognized as a nutrient-dense source of protein, fatty acids, antioxidants and dietary fiber. As stated by the US Food and Drug Administration, eating a handful of nuts every day protects against heart disease.

As walnuts are commonly considered a concentrated source of calories and fat, and since many people do not estimate properly how many nuts are in one serving, the Food and Drug Administration of the United States recommends amount of individual portions that you can comfortably fit in the palm of your hand. While the US Food and Drug Administration suggests eating a handful of nuts daily to help reduce your risk of heart disease, the American Heart Association suggests consuming a small handful of nuts just four times per week.

Walnuts are Useful and Tasty

Walnuts are one of the most valuable and most helpful nuts known to man. They comprise many important vitamins, protein and omega 3 fatty acids. Precisely because of that nuts are convert in a valuable raw material that protecting human’s bones from fractures and injuries. Fatty acids have unique properties to strengthening health of bones and abbreviate the risk of traumas. They can be consumed as processed and raw. Walnuts are rich in askorbin, vitamins B1, B2, PP, carotene.

Kernels are recommended especially for people with stomach problems. Recent studies indicate that nuts reduce the amounts of cholesterol in the human body and they have a positive influence in the battle against many serious illnesses such as atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. It's good for people who are engaged primarily with mental activity because nuts can improve cerebral blood flow.

They are rich in vitamin E / vitamin-called anti-aging / and have good influence of physiological activity of the skin. Increasingly we hear about cosmetic products on walnut’s base. These nuts contain nutrients which help to heal scars and other skin pigmentation and give it shine. Some shampoos and hair conditioners are also made with walnuts - for smooth, shiny and healthy clumps. In addition, walnuts stimulate hair growth and reduce the risk of hair loss. Another feature typical for walnuts is their strong wood. It is has many and highly valued properties. Therefore finds a wide application in the production of furniture and interior design. Moreover, this kernel is a huge number of applications in cooking and home medicine.