Nuts and Phytic Acid: Should You Be Concerned?
Who doesn’t like nuts? They’re crunchy, fatty, nutritious, and convenient. They travel well. Tossing them into the air and catching them with your mouth is a fun way to impress any onlookers (this effect is enhanced if you sit in a chair backward at the same time). They even turn into butter. Nuts are the common bond between all dietary sects, it seems. Vegans love them for the protein. Ancestral eaters accept them, some begrudgingly. Weston A. Pricers have to soak, sprout, dehydrate, and ferment them before they’ll even consider eating nuts, but in the end, they love them. Mainstream healthy dieters dig their “healthy fats.” Epidemiologists, squirrels, and birds laud them. They’re self-contained little morsels of instant edibility, good raw and roasted alike. What’s not to like?
Well, there’s the phytic acid. Wait – isn’t that the stuff you find in grains and legumes? Yes. Should we be concerned? Let’s take a look…
Hi Mark,
I was hoping to get your take on phytic acid in nuts. If nuts are so good for us, and beans and grains so bad, but all three contain a good amount of phytic acid, what’s the deal?
I like nuts. I guess what I’m really asking is: can I still eat them?
Thanks,
Cindy
Yes, it’s true. Nuts contain a lot of phytic acid, AKA phytate, AKA IP-6, AKA the storage form of a plant’s phosphorus, and antioxidant to the seed in times of oxidative stress (PDF). When something that contains it is eaten, phytic acid binds to minerals like zinc, iron, magnesium, calcium, chromium, and manganese in the gastrointestinal tract, unless it’s reduced or nullified by soaking, sprouting, and/or fermentation. Bound minerals generally cannot be absorbed in the intestine, and too many bound minerals can lead to mineral deficiencies. Animals who produce phytase – the enzyme that breaks down phytate – can thrive on phytate-rich foods. Rats, for example, produce ample amounts of phytase and can handle more dietary phytate without exhibiting signs of mineral deficiencies. Since humans produce around 30 times less phytase than rats, phytate-heavy diets might be problematic for humans.
By dry weight, nuts generally contain more phytic acid than similar amounts of grains and legumes. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this table, pulled from Chris Kresser’s excellent article on phytic acid in nuts:
In milligrams per 100 grams of dry weight
Brazil nuts 1719
Cocoa powder 1684-1796
Oat flakes 1174
Almond 1138 – 1400
Walnut 982
Peanut roasted 952
Brown rice 840-990
Peanut ungerminated 821
Lentils 779
Peanut germinated 610
Hazelnuts 648 – 1000
Wild rice flour 634 – 752.5
Yam meal 637
Refried beans 622
Corn tortillas 448
Coconut 357
Corn 367
Entire coconut meat 270
White flour 258
White flour tortillas 123
Polished rice 11.5 – 66
Strawberries 12
So, 100 grams of almonds has between 1138 and 1400 mg of phytic acid. Walnuts have 982 mg, and 100 grams of Brazil nuts tops the list with over 1700 mg!
Meanwhile, 100 grams of brown rice has between 840 and 990 mg, lentils have 779 mg per 100 grams, and oats contain just over 1100 milligrams.
So what’s the deal? Why do nuts get a pass, while grains and legumes get condemned?
First of all, grains and legumes are generally seen as dietary staples. They form the foundation of meals. People don’t have a “small handful” of refried pinto beans (and not just because that’s an incredibly messy way to eat them) or “one or two” grains of brown rice. They eat plates of this stuff, they rely on them for protein and calories, and sure enough, cultures whose diets are based on (improperly prepared) grains and legumes often suffer the symptoms of widespread mineral deficiencies, like nutritional rickets.
Nuts, on the other hand, are an adornment to a meal or a snack in between. A condiment. They are not meals themselves. And though I hear stories of people going Primal and subsequently going crazy with nuts, eating almond flour bread with every meal and downing a pound of pecans each day, I just don’t see it. I could be mistaken, of course. If I am wrong, and you guys are indeed eating large quantities of phytate-rich nuts every day, don’t do that. Keep it to about a handful (which is between one and two ounces, depending on the hand) per day. But my general sense is that people aren’t eating copious amounts of nuts. They’re eating some nuts in between meals, on those days when they just need a snack. They’re making almond meal pancakes once or twice a month (cause let’s face it – they’re kind of a drag to make and clean up after).
It’s quite telling that all the studies looking at the effect of phytate on mineral bioavailability focus on grains and legumes, not nuts, because grains and legumes are what people are actually eating and relying on for nutrients. In 2007, the average American ate 610 grain calories and just 89 nut calories per day. I strongly suspect those numbers would look a little different for a Primal eater, but my point stands: you don’t see any studies examining the effect of almond intake on mineral bioavailability because nobody’s relying on almonds for their nutrition.
Second, those figures are for “phytate per 100 grams dry weight.” 100 grams of almonds is a little different than 100 grams of brown rice in the real world, on your plate, and in your mouth. The brown rice is about 362 calories, while the almonds are 575 calories. You’re far more likely to plop 362 calories of brown rice onto a plate and go back for seconds than you are to eat almost an entire cup of almonds in a sitting. 100 grams of rice is a standard meal; 100 grams of almonds is veering out of “snack” and into “meal” territory.
Is there an “ideal” way to eat nuts with respect to the phytic acid content?
Although asking “What would Grok do?” doesn’t give us definitive prescriptions for what we ought to do, it can be a helpful starting point. How would our ancestors have eaten nuts? By the plastic shrinkwrapped pre-shelled and salted bagful? Or by the laboriously gathered and hand-shelled occasional handful? Eating nuts is effortless now, but it wasn’t always like that. Ever crack a macadamia shell by hand? A Brazil nut? An almond? It’s hard work. You’re either trying to break open a rock-hard shell or sifting through fragments of shell and nut to find something edible. If you eat your nuts like you had to gather and shell them yourself – rather than gorging on them by the handful – you won’t be able to consume a significant amount of phytic acid.
If you’re still worried about phytic acid from nuts, you can play around with food timing. In order for phytate to impair absorption, it has to physically come into contact with the minerals in question. Since mineral absorption – or non-absorption caused by phytate chelation – happens in the gastrointestinal tract, that wild and crazy place where masticated and partially digested food particles gather, mingle, and sometimes pair up, keeping the food in your gut away from the phytic acid in your gut by eating the nuts separate from other foods might improve your mineral status. The minerals in the foods with the phytic acid will presumably be affected, but the impact on other sources of minerals should be reduced. Eat your nuts apart from other sources of minerals. Sorry, those Brazil nut-crusted oysters, while delicious, might be a bad idea for zinc absorption.
This is in stark contrast to the way most people eat their phytate. The average person out for Mexican food, who eats grains and legumes with relish, is having four corn tortillas (448 mg phytate) with a small scoop of refried beans (622 mg) and some brown rice to, ya know, be healthy (990 mg). He throws in a few hefty slices of carne asada, but the combined 2060 milligrams of phytic acid for that meal will impact its overall mineral contribution.
The average Primal person, who avoids grains and legumes, has an ounce, or a small handful of almonds as an afternoon snack (350 mg phytate) with a couple Brazil nuts (171 mg) for the selenium. Being snacks, they’re separate from his meals. Being separate from his meals, the antinutrient effect of the phytate on the other minerals is lessened. If he bumped that up to 100 grams of each nut for over 3000 mg of phytate and over 1200 calories, then, yeah, he’d have a phytate problem (and an omega-6 problem). But he’s not doing that.
Unless you’re a Hadza, you shouldn’t be relying on nuts for the bulk of your nutrients and calories. And that’s the important thing: you don’t have to, nor are you compelled to, because the Primal eating plan is an overall nutritious one, full of mineral-rich vegetation, animals, and yes, the occasional handful of nuts. You’re not relying on plant foods for your zinc – you’re eating shellfish and beef and lamb for the far-more-bioavailable animal-based zinc. According to the evidence I was able to find, phytic acid simply isn’t a major concern in the context of a nutritious diet, especially one that contains ample amounts of animal-based minerals and protein.
Besides, you wouldn’t want to completely eliminate phytate from your diet, even if it were possible. There are a number of possible beneficial health effects of a moderate amount of phytic acid which I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention, like:
- Phytic acid can inhibit calcium crystallzation and reduce kidney stone development.
- If you have hemachromatosis – a tendency to absorb too much iron – you actually want to reduce your iron absorption, and dietary phytic acid can (famously) do just that. It’s also one of the only iron chelators that does not induce lipid peroxidation or the formation of reactive oxygen species (PDF). If you’re trying to absorb more iron – maybe you’re pregnant or anemic – taking some vitamin C with the phytic acid will inhibit its iron-binding ability (PDF).
- Phytate may also be an effective anti-cancer agent with the curious tendency to ignore the healthy cells and focus only on the cancerous ones.
So to answer your final question, yes, I’d say you can definitely eat and enjoy nuts in moderation, an ounce or two (especially soaked) as long as you’re eating an otherwise nutrient-dense diet.
Which you are, right?
Thanks for reading, everyone. Be sure to leave your thoughts in the comment section.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
I go nuts if I eat too much nuts!
I wouldn’t worry about the amount of phytic acid in nuts, because nuts are snacks, not meals, as Mark said.
They contain other important nutrients from which our organisms benefit.
Perhaps I am ostracizing myself, but I actually don’t like nuts that much. If I eat one, I’m like, “Oh yeah, this is pretty good,” and might eat a few more, but I tire of them really fast, and never really seek them out.
Sunflower seeds, though, are like crack. I picked up the habit in high school, cause I learned it from Agent Mulder on X-Files. Why must they show such bad role models to children!!
I don’t much care for nuts, either, and I actually find eating too many of them recalls the days of wondering what in my “healthy” meal of whole grain pasta and veggie-laden sauce was making me sick. In small amounts and used to make infrequent treats (like dark chocolate cake or a dairy-free, grain-free cheesecake), they’re lovely because they allow me to have things that I couldn’t eat otherwise and that I like to be able to share (birthday cake, for one!).
I can no longer buy sunflower seeds because I go through a 1/2lb bag in less than a week. They’re too convenient to snack on when I’m working on essays. I tend to try to find more nutritious things that take equally long to chew on/break down (spiced but unsalted home-made jerky is currently a favourite).
Haha I am the same, in high school I used to eat them every day. 15 years latter and I’m still addicted to them
Thanks for this lovely article! It’s just the final kick in the pants (er, nuts) that I needed to get out of my diet more and more.
Keep up the amazing work!
Ha! Kick in the nuts, I love it. I mean I don’t love a kick in the nuts, but very funny…
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you Mark!
Very helpful. I used to snack on nuts all day long. (I think I could live on nuts and peanuts.) Now I might have a few if dinner is a ways off.
I tend to have kidney stones so I’m glad to hear about the effect of phytic acid on them.
same here. i definitely need to reduce my nut intake.
Well, this is not going to help the Julian Bakery’s Paleo Bread launch.
I was sure you were kidding about the Paleo Bread, but a quick Google search shows you aren’t!
Yeah, they’re launching a bread targeted to the ancestral health movement any day now, and a intellectual guiding light of said movement preemptively says it’s a bad idea. This is not going to make the product manager’s day.
I eat between 1 and 2 tablespoons of raw almond butter most days. Usually it’s on an empty stomach. I do make almond flour muffins for my wife and son so I will be sure to tell them not to overeat them.
Thanks for the article!
Hmm.. I typically buy raw almond butter too.. I highly doubt the almonds are soaked.. Would roasting them help? I.e. I wonder if non-raw butter would have some benefit? I guess like with most things, homemade would be best.
Also, it’s the omega 6 in nuts that really concerns me..
This is a bit too primally wonkish for me to care about? Is the only problem with nuts that they hurt mineral absorption? If so, why not eat a bit more minerals to offset? Seems like an easy fix so I can continue to eat lots of nuts of all sorts shapes sizes and types. I am one of those people who can and does make a meal out of nuts and jerky.
Please help me understand thanks.
No, you’re right. It’s really hard to shake the mainstream-engendered mindset that eating is gluttonous and evil and that animal should be eaten in small doses, and unfortunately we bring that attitude to the ancestral diet movement–so we are not thinking about what we need to eat MORE OF on top of what we need to avoid.
Not only did Grok find it more difficult to eat nuts than we do today, Grok also got more bone broth and bone marrow and organs and meat. The few charts I’ve seen of typical intakes for traditional and paleolithic-type people indicate that their intake of various vitamins and minerals was stratospheric compared to our miserly little RDA. They would have laughed in the face of a stack of almond pancakes.
Our girls eat almond flour pancakes one-two times per week. I guess we’ll be reducing that number.
They also eat almond butter with veggies about once every 1-2 weeks.
They don’t like other nuts on their own.
Thanks for the clarification Mark!
You HAVE to try Chris Kresser’s new improved fluffy buckwheat pancakes. It’s easy, (but needs to be started the day before) fermented and soaked. I make the whole thing in the blender and save the batter up to a week. Great! Kids love it!
I second that.
Third that.
Where would I find this wonderful pan-cake?
In Loren Cordain’s “The Paleo Answer” he lists buckwheat as a pseudo grain to avoid. While the fermenting and soaking should neutralize the phytic acid, he points out that buckwheat is high in lectins, which promote a leaky gut.
With leaky gut toxins within our guts can cross the gut barrier and interact with our immune systems to elicit autoimmune diseases.
Now I know this is a primal blog, and not a paleo blog. But the reason I follow paleo is to avoid the diseases of civilization, and autoimmune diseases are some of them.
Thank you
Happycyclegirl,
Try making them pancakes with coconut flour instead. Tasty and better nutritionally.
Fermented Almond Flour Pancakes=
http://milkforthemorningcake.blogspot.com/2011/02/overnight-almond-pancakes-and-pate.html
removes the phylates!
So are nuts soaked in the process of making nut butter, or would, say, commercially available almond butter still have normal phytate levels as plain, unsoaked almonds?
Kind of curious since I cut out almond butter recently (Too easy to overeat it). I have a pecan allergy and almonds are the only nut I really feel safe eating.
I also have a tendency to overeat almond butter – around my house we label foods like that “binge foods” no matter how good they are for us. Of course, I found a fix – I mix up half almond butter w/ half sunflower butter (organic, unsweetened), add ground flax seed & protein powder, and re-package. Still tasty, but not so binge-y. Lately I’ve been added a big TB of ghee or coconut oil to the mix …
Same here! Almonds, almond butter straight out of the container, in banana-almond-egg “pancakes”, protein shakes or any number of different recipes. I find a way to work it in to my diet. Super easy for me to binge on. That is a very interesting recipe to un-binge-fy it…must try…
Can you soak nuts THEN roast them?
If you soak them, it’s better to slowly dry them, then roast them. The insides might still be damp if you only roasted them (danger of mold).
Another reason to own a dehydrator.
What’s your take on mycotoxins in nuts, Mark?
I heard a podcast guest tell the Fat Burning Man that, owing to time, distance, and storage factors, you simply could not buy Brazil nuts that “were not moldy” at the point of sale.
That sounds a little alarmist, but for all I know he’s right.
I’ve heard something similar and would like to know more definitively if I should be worried!! Especially since I don’t see a Brazil nut tree in my future…
Dr Hulda Clark suggests that we soak nuts in Vitamin C water (eg, a teaspoon of Vit C crystals) to kill molds and little-bad bugs. I seem to remember that she also said to wash your veggies in Vit C water, also. I’m not sure if this applies to aflatoxin though. Anybody out there know?
I think I read nuts need to be raw for a proper soak, otherwise you’re soaking fats from roasting that could turn rancid. Is this true? Also, aren’t all nuts in the U.S. pasteurized and thus not truly raw? So what kind of nuts should you buy if you want to soak them before eating.
All nuts sold in stores are pasteurized either with steam heat, or propylene oxide.
I inquired specifically to Trader Joes about their almonds labeled ‘raw’ and they replied that they are steamed. In the email they sent me back, they mentioned that certain other nuts they have labeled as ‘raw’ are not treated with steam or other. I don’t have a copy of it so I don’t recall what other nuts they named though.
In 2007 there was a big deal in the U.S. about the almond growers of California adopting a policy to use the gas to “sterilize” the almonds grown there. Almonds are also available from Turkey and perhaps the Mediterranean. Steaming would probably be a better health option than a chemical treatment, but may not eliminate the phytates and probably distorts the natural oils as well….it’s a guess. For more information on sprouting and soaking techniques, check out raw food blogs.
Another question I’d like an answer to! Nuts are such a hassle; if I could think of things to replace them with in my diet, I would!
Thank you for mentioning the positive effects of phytate, Mark. Most people don’t know phytic acid is a somewhat potent anti-oxidant with actual, measurable health benefits. Like most things, the problem is when it crosses the threshold of toxicity. Making foods rich in phytate dietary staples like the SAD does is a huge mistake, but tiny quantities can be beneficial. Just make sure if you eat nuts, buy them raw when possible, store them in the refrigerator or freezer in airtight containers to prevent rancidity, and for God’s sake, eat them WHOLE, not as some rancid, baked nut meal. I would rather eat sourdough wheat bread than some poisonous almond meal monstrosity that’s both loaded with rancid omega 6 and tastes like a bad knockoff. If I’m going to poison myself, at least let it taste good.
Yeah, never got why people think almond meal is healthy when it is basically oxidized omega-6.
I am new to Paleo. So basically the diet is organic, pastured, wild, meat, fish and eggs. Veggies and berries?? How do you sustain that? I have a Paleo cookbook that uses almond flour and almond butter. Can’t do that either? I guess almond butter in small amounts. With no grains and no dairy, it is so limiting. What cookbooks do you recommend? No baked goods at all then?
Thank you for any tips!
My Paleo-mentor-(Susie) taught me how to prepare nuts, healthily. We buy raw refrigerated nuts from a food Co-Op. Bite the bullet and buy a bunch of various nuts because it’s a hassle to prepare. Soak for a day or two, change water couple times/day (NOTE: they swell some). I mentioned on an earlier post to add 1 tsp Vit C to water (at least first water); dry nuts after draining good, in dehydrator NOT over 95 degrees for about a day; then season or salt w/Celtic or pink salt; roast at lowest oven temp. until crunchy. Store in freezer to keep from going rancid or moldy. I kept the soaking nuts separated by type, then mixed them after roasting. Cashews were the worst tasting for me.
Almond butter is fine. Just don’t cook it.
Check out Mark’s post on white rice. White rice flour opens up a whole world for baked goods.
I’d rather not eat either. I’m finding wheat’s a trigger for migraines and I like waking up Not In Pain.
Almond flour’s a better bet than almond meal. Proper almond flour is both blanched and defatted, so the omega-6 is much less of a big deal.
If I really want to use almond meal in a recipe I just grind my own almonds. It’s a waste of money to buy it. I refuse to buy preground flax meal for the same reason. It’s no challenge at all to put the seeds in a dedicated coffee grinder.
Where are you finding actual almond flour (defatted)?
I’m in the US, and all I can find are the full-fatted almond meals. Even the famous Honeyville brand is simply full almonds that have been more finely ground.
I soaked walnuts in water and found them too bland to bother with. I’m extremely sensitive to grains, dairy products, etc., and feel better if I avoid nuts altogether.
Walnuts soaked overnight then mixed with coconut oil (a little) and a bit of cinnamon or vanilla powder=heaven. If you use stevia, that works too. Or a spec of maple syrup if you tolerate it. Dehydrate at 105 degrees for a day or so….heavenly
We usually soak nuts, I buy them in large sealed packages, soak them overnight in water with sea salt then dehydrate them until crunchy again. The I store them in the freezer and they last a long time so I don’t have to do it very often, it’s not really a big deal. But we do also eat some roasted nuts and nut butters.
I soak and dehydrate too so I love the idea of soaking in sea salted water–I would think it would add some nice flavor!
I shall have to try the salt….thanks.
I just put a small handful of nuts in a bowl of water and let them soak overnight and then drain them and put them in the fridge…same bowl and when the bowl is empty…repeat for the next days supply….this way, as I am committed to eating only soaked nuts, I can’t overindulge.
If I don’t eat them all mould is not a problem because they are in the fridge.
This is a more general question- you said that nuts were hard to find and open, so they were the occasional treat. I’m going out on a limb here, relying on my 8 am biology lectures, but wasn’t meat technically a delicacy too? Was Grok really eating steak for breakfast lunch and dinner? And if he wasn’t a coastal hunter gatherer, he probably wouldn’t be eating fish and shellfish. Depending on where Grok lived, his meat options would have been limited. And cows weren’t exactly around waiting like sitting ducks for every Grok to enjoy. Am I mistaken? Nuts just reminded me of this broader question I have been meaning to ask the paleo diet. Thank you.
These are valid questions. But I think we can rely on modern-day hunter-gatherers as an example. They get together and make it a team effort to hunt down an animal. It’s not for delicacy’s sake. They might walk many miles to find a large game animal and spend a day stalking it, attacking it and hauling it home. The caloric density makes it worth the work. That’s my understanding. But there was also plenty of fish, small game, birds, shellfish etc. that would have displaced the large game often. So, no, I definitely wouldn’t think steak for breakfast lunch and dinner makes any sense at all, especially if you only eat once a day anyway. Might be large quantities of steak one night, bird stew the next, fish the next, etc.
Meat was a staple rather than a delicacy – meat eating allowed the expansion of the brain via shrinkage of the guy (see Basal Metabolic Rate theory).
Paleo humans had mega-fauna meat options that are now extinct, such as aurochs. They ate the meat, the organs, and the very calorific bone marrow. In fact it’s likely that pre-homo-sapiens hominids were scavengers who ate bone marrow and left overs before getting brainier and graduating to full-on hunting.
There is a Cordain paper on modern HG societies and their calorie sources, and most (73%) of them get >55% of their calories from animal sources. Ancestral HGs probably got more
I can’t wait until science “Jurassic Park’s” some Aurochs.
And an eohippus
There weren’t cows just wandering around, but there were plenty of African Buffalo, antelope, copious amounts of game birds, pigs, other smaller mammals, such as rats and porcupines. Any animal you can imagine really.
By comparison nuts, were tiny and scarce.
Remember that our close (extinct) cousins, the Neanderthal (you may have a little in you BTW) were almost completely carnivorous.
I had though of this too…..but Hunter Gatherers may not all be ‘coastal’ but they would never be too far from a water source where life/food is usually abundant.
Hunter Gatherers were not ‘fixed’ in one location and followed the food trail and relocated and rotated several hunting grounds not like us who are ‘fixed’ in place and have our food come to us via the retail sector.
Modern day Hunter Gatherer societies eat once or twice a day and may or may not snack. They live their life outside and the sun actually decreases the need for food.
I read somewhere that sunlight, as is water and air, is actually a real quantifiable energy source just like a calorie and that we ‘insiders’ replace it with food to make up the deficit…….thumbs down to the industrial revolution and the 24/7 mindset.
So to my mind, an accurate food pyramid would be categorised by air, water, sunlight, movement, protein, fats, fibre and carbs. I suppose love, laughter and learning should be in there too as they are all important to our health.
We usually over consume category because of under-consuming another….and to look at it in a holistic way is more beneficial.
…….to add to that [correct me if I am wrong.....can't find the source....] before white man came to Australia the Aboriginals had small family units and each had ‘custodianship’ of their land and an animal they were forbidden to hunt so their land was a ‘nursery’ for the surrounding areas.
They didn’t pen the animals in and when they migrated to other areas they became food for their neighbours and vice versa.
When sustainability replaces growth [and inefficiency and waste it's closest mates] in the agricultural, manufacturing, education and food industries we will all be better served….paleo style of course.
You realize bugs are animals, right? We ate a lot of those. Most cultures around the world still do. Good old primate heritage.
There’s also the point that we tended to go after big game, which meant a lot of eating per hunting effort.
Also, it is thought we started our vertebrate-eating career as scavengers, not as hunters, and that this may be where we first encountered dogs. We would have been competing with them for the same food.
Anyway. We are so well-adapted to meat-eating and you don’t get that way from *limited* contact with it. It’s a nice vegan fantasy that has made its way into mainstream thinking but it really does not wash.
Besides, if your diet is heavyish on the meat and contains no grains or refined sugars or seed oils? You just aren’t as hungry. You’re going to be *somewhat* hungry from expending physical effort (and now you know why lions laze around all day!), but you’re not going to have constant munchies like you would if your diet were all potato chips and Coke.
Does that mean that the crushed up beetles in Starbucks Strawberries and Creme Frappuccino makes it good for us?
I found it amusing that the beetles were the issue in this scenario, not the overwhelming amount of sugar in these drinks and other treats. I will take crushed beetles over food coloring any day. Then again, I just want to eat food that is the color it is supposed to be.
Prey is a lot scarcer now than it used to be before we hunted a lot of the large mammals to extinction, forcing us to develop agriculture to feed ourselves (probably via herding). The agriculture in turn encroached on the habitat of the remaining prey, making it still scarcer. More recently, we’ve been overfishing too: river fish as well as sea-creatures (and yes, Grokka would have caught river fish by hand: look up ‘trout tickling’), which loses us another source of decent food.
Look at the Ancient Greek legend of the Golden Age, a time in the distant past when people didn’t have to work for their food, and lived longer, healthier lives. I sometimes wonder whether this isn’t a folk memory of the pre-agricultural times when game was abundant, before we killed it off.
In fact, this is my biggest problem with the whole Paleo ethos. It wasn’t sustainable then and it’s not sustainable now, unless we work really hard at making it so.
The times of abundant food is not that far in the past. In what is now the United States, Lewis & Clark wrote of the astounding numbers of buffalo, and of fish literally jumping out of streams into their boats.
To soak almonds according to Weston A. Price methods, combine:
4 cups raw almonds
1 T sea salt
Filtered water to cover
Let soak overnight, or at least 7 hours. Drain and dehydrate or place in oven of no more than 150 degrees F(65 C) for about 24 hours, until crispy.
I suppose you could roast them after dehydrating, but they’re pretty good as is. You could also season them before dehydrating if you chose.
I’ve been putting off soaking the many raw nuts in my kitchen, waiting to become snacks blended with other foods in my food processor. Le Sigh. I always soaked my beans overnight and have enjoyed the hiatus from extra steps. I suppose the time is nigh to start them soaking, since we combine them with other foods for snacks and dips. Thanks as always for the helpful links!
And I thought I was just nuts…
Nuts are great to satisfy a desire for crunchy food that a low carb diet can otherwise leave unfulfilled. It’s not hard to do the soaking routine and – if you have never tried it – the nuts taste so much better.
Walnuts taste like essence of walnut and the mouth sore causing acids are neutralized by soaking.
Almonds taste like almond extract. Hard to find raw ones to start with, but it seems to work as well with the pasteurized ones.
Brazil nuts are a great source of selenium for cancer protection and thyroid health.
Thanks for the great discussion, I would only add a big encouragement to try the soaking and dehydrating!
Here’s my wonderful source for truly raw almonds and other nuts: rawnutsandseeds.com
It’s a small company and you really know what you are getting, nut-wise
Ask for Michael.
I soak them and dehydrate. Then I try not to overeat them!
OMG…I finally learned why walnuts would give me instant mouth sores (but not always). I thought I was allergic to walnuts. Thanks for sharing!!
I love blogs.
Doh!
Nuts/Trail mixes are what I consistently snack on every day at work (often replacing a midday meal)! Now I need a new dry-good snack-staple.
Biltong!
Yes!! I love the stuff, just wish it was easier to get really good biltong here in the UK:(
If you live in London, there is great biltong at the south African store in either London Bridge or Victoria station. Great stuff!
I love biltong! Especially the lemon/chili one (don’t know if it’s completely primal, but yeah…well…still love it
Am now on a mission…
I started eating low carb/primal to control blood sugar and blood pressure. I thought I was controlling my diet very good, both BS and BP had returned to near normal. Got caught away from home at meal time and purchased nuts as a safe food. Had blood test and blood pressure check 16 hours later. Was very surprised to find that my blood pressure 180/110! Everyone is different.
Mark, your main argument is that people don’t use nuts as a meal. I may be in the minority, but I consume nearly half of my daily calories from nuts. (About 800 Cals a day.)
Compare that to the maybe 200 Calories of meat I eat a day.
I don’t have a lot of time to cook, and I don’t eat processed food much. So instead of cooking all my meals for a whole week on Sunday, I cook my lunches. Then I fill any Calorie gaps I have with nuts.
Should I soak them, or what?
The mongongo fruit/nut makes up about 1/3 of the caloric intake of the !Kung people. The skin is discarded, the flesh eaten, the hard nut is then roasted for about five minutes to facilitate cracking them. I don’t know if this nut is high in phytates, but it probably is. And I don’t know if roasting it in it’s shell for about five minutes would reduce the phytate significantly. But this nut is a staple of these people, who have existed as hunter-gatherers for tens of thousands of years. Here the web page where I got this info. The mongongo nut is the leading article. http://www.beyondveg.com/tu-j-l/raw-cooked/raw-cooked-3g.shtml
I’ve tried the soaking/drying method a few times, and it takes a lot of time! So I buy them already soaked/dried from Wilderness Family Naturals
http://www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com/category/bulk-products-raw-nuts-and-seeds.php
They have almost any nut you could want, including the PB favorite, macadamias. Also lots of other great stuff!
I have read that if you use blanched almond flour for pancakes/muffins etc. that much of the phytate is removed in the blanching process. While not as good as soaking, this article (wish I could find it right now) said that much of the phytate is in the skins so by blanching and washing a lot of the nasties are removed. Does anyone know anything more about this?
You are correct. The phytic acid is in the bran. That is the brown outside covering. Almonds, and almond flour, can be purchased either blanched and unblanched. I would only buy blanched, or soak the almonds and remove the brown covers yourself.
The list above does not include macadamia nuts. They don’t have a bran covering. They are low in phytic acid. Their shells are so tough I guess they need less antinutrients to keep animals from eating them.
I need to see how to remove the bran from Brazil nuts. I believe steaming them for a few minutes will work.
Oh, you are not kidding. You actually need a special nutcracker to handle macadamia nuts. That’s why you just about never find them available in shell.
Yeah I was wondering the same thing…
That, and the other deal with almond flour versus regular ground almonds is they usually defat the almonds before grinding them into flour. There is still some residual fat there but not as much as in whole almonds. That helps with some of the O6 issue too.
so… breakfast smoothie often includes almond milk & almond butter. I usually have a “handful” of nuts as a snack daily, sometimes more often. I had to institute a one LaraBar a day limit when I started Primal. I think I’m now better adjusted to having more food prepped in advance than I was, but… there’s still a lot of nuts in my diet.
I wouldn’t have survived the transition to fat-burner without nuts. In those early weeks, I ate copious amounts of almonds to resist the Snickers cravings. But after that, I learned more and was motivated to cut back. Now I have a small bag of nuts once a week, usually by itself, and enjoy them thoroughly. My Co-op has sprouted almonds, too! Yay!
I also eat almond butter daily. And some weekends I make pancakes using almond butter to have for a quick breakfast during the next week. It sounds like I am waaaaayyy overdoing it!
Honestly, if the ‘eat a little bit’ is true for nuts, it should be true for beans. Beans are not exactly a staple if you just want to throw a cup in a salad or soup. So, there is no difference then. And a serving of rice is actually a small handful (1/3 cup dry). I think the divide is artificial. Any of these products can be consumed following the same guidelines: small volume, prepared properly and not daily. Yes, No?
the high carb count for rice and beans makes them off-limits for me.
This is my problem with the paleo/primal diet logic; our ancestors ate anything that was eatable when they found it. When grasses were ripe they ate the seeds. When legumes were ripe they ate them. They were on a constant daily search for something to eat.
The issue for us today is to balance exercise, food intake and the variety of foods we intake. The only reason I can see to eliminate any foods from your diet is allergic reactions.
Eating some foods to the total exclusion of others is not healthy and it has been proven time-n-time again. And yes, I realize I am speaking blasphemy on this forum.
http://www.biblelife.org/stefansson1.htm