Dear Mark: Nuts and Omega-6s
Nuts have gotten a surprising amount of flack as of late. Many nuts have a fairly high PUFA content, and most of that PUFA is Omega-6, which is the bad one. It’s easily oxidized, highly unstable for cooking, usually rancid on the shelf, and, thanks to government farm subsidies and public hysteria over animal fat, it’s in absolutely everything nowadays. We Primal types generally avoid it for good reason, and that tends to influence how we react to the O6 content of nuts. Last week I received this email from a reader:
Dear Mark,
I’m a little confused. I get the animal fat, the meat, the veggies, and the lowish sugar fruit recommendations, but what about nuts? I love nuts, don’t get me wrong… I’m just a bit paranoid about the Omega 6 content. You recommend nuts in the book. If you (and pretty much all other Primal bloggers) tell us to avoid Omega 6 fats, should we still be eating them? I’m having trouble reconciling the two bits of advice and there seem to be mixed messages out there. Thanks.
Is there a place for nuts in the Primal Blueprint diet? Let’s take a closer look.
Omega-6 Content Various Nuts (1/4 cup)
Walnuts – 9.5 g
Almonds – 4.36 g
Cashews – 2.6 g
Macadamias – 0.5 g
Brazil nuts – 7.2 g
Hazelnuts – 2.7 g
Pistachio – 4.1 g
Pine nuts – 11.6 g
Pecans – 5.8 g
The basic takeaway is that quite a few nuts are fairly O6-intensive (with several, like macadamia nuts, being extremely low). A diet high in these nuts, then, would presumably skew the vaunted tissue O6-O3 ratio toward pro-inflammatory bodily processes… right? I mean, if you were to eat food fried in high-O6 vegetable oil at some restaurant, that would be pro-inflammatory. If you were to eat cheap Chinese food stir-fried in cheap, high-O6 soybean oil every day for lunch, you’d expect a good amount of oxidized LDL at your next lipid test. And if you were to supplement your diet with a few daily tablespoons of unheated corn oil, there would be markedly negative effects (besides gagging and/or vomiting) on your body. How are nuts any different?
For one, nuts aren’t just “bags of linoleic acid” (as Stephan Guyenet recently pointed out in a comment board I’ve misplaced). Isolating Omega-6 fatty acids and then exposing them to air or heat is bad dietary policy. I don’t care where it is – in your body, in your cupboard, or in the skillet. But nuts are much more than linoleic acid. In fact, a nut is a pretty complete nutritional source. After all, it’s the seed of a tree, a sort of arboreal egg. Contained within is everything that tree needs to start growing from scratch – fats, carbohydrates, even protein, plus natural antioxidants like Vitamin E and plenty of minerals. We have to remember that antioxidants in foods exist, first and foremost, to protect the food from damage. That linoleic acid in the walnut isn’t meant for you to consume (we’ve adapted to it, not the other way around); it’s there to provide energy for the budding tree. A damaged, oxidized fat is no good to any tree, and Vitamin E helps prevent oxidation. When we strip a nut of everything but the liquid fat, we’re asking for trouble, but if we eat the whole nut, the fat remains protected by the natural antioxidants, at least to a point (eating burnt, damaged, or rancid nuts isn’t the same as eating raw or soaked nuts). In other words, extracting, refining, and isolating a highly unstable Omega-6 fatty acid in oil form is entirely different than eating the odd handful of pistachios every other day or so. If you roast your nuts to the point of burning, then, yeah, you’re probably eating damaged fats, and that could be a problem. But eating a quarter cup of nuts every few days isn’t going to hurt you – even if they’re high-O6 walnuts (the horror!).
Even if the Omega-6 fat in nuts is bad, the positives of the nut seem to weigh more heavily. Whole nut intake seems to reduce markers of systemic inflammation, and inflammation is linked with a wide range of ailments and afflictions (obesity, insulin resistance, heart disease, excess cortisol, etc.). The study’s (PDF) authors hesitate to isolate and praise a single component of the nut, referring to them as “complex food matrices containing diverse nutrients and other chemical constituents.” I think that’s an accurate appraisal of the humble, irreducible nut.
What’s the Downside?
Problems arise with steady year-round access to foods whose historical availability was seasonal and intermittent. If you were a hunter-gatherer, you probably weren’t gathering bushels of nuts on a daily basis – at least, you weren’t finding enough nuts in the wild to eat eight ounces a day. Nuts should never comprise the bulk of your diet, anyway. A quarter cup as a snack every now and then isn’t going to kill you. It’s not even going to compromise your progress. I mean, they’re nuts. They aren’t meals, and they’re not meant to be. They’re snacks, basic supplements to an already nutritious diet replete in animal fat, protein, and vegetables. And in a high Omega-3 diet like the Primal Blueprint they definitely have a place.
Just make sure you treat your nuts as delicious snacks, rather than staple cornerstones of a meal. Don’t burn your nuts, and don’t cook with the oil. The safest bet is to buy them raw and soak or roast them yourself. That way, you control the heat and you can mediate the oxidation.
Overanalyzing your food intake is a good way to stress yourself out and make every little dietary choice an internal struggle. Avoid falling into this trap. Be vigilant of your food choices, but pick your battles wisely. Making sure you ask the waiter to cook your omelet in butter rather than vegetable oil is worth the trouble; stressing over the Omega-6 content of the twenty walnuts in front of you is decidedly not.
This is a fairly contentious topic in the community, with a ton of bloggers weighing in. Richard Nikoley (last I heard) opts for the harvest-and-gorge nut consumption style, going regular periods of time where he eats none at all. He’ll avoid buying any “for 2-3 store visits in a row.” Remember, Grok didn’t have around the clock access to nuts.
Stephan Guyenet and Don Matesz go back and forth in the comments section of Don’s recent post on walnuts, in which Don offers very sound evidence in favor of walnut consumption. Definitely check it out.
My general take, as I see it, is that nuts shouldn’t make up the bulk of your caloric intake. It’s not that Omega-6s are inherently dangerous, especially bound up in whole food, nut form; nuts may even be beneficial to heart health, probably by decreasing systemic inflammation. It’s that they’re often too available, too plentiful, and way too easy to consume in excess. What drew our ancestors to nuts – the caloric density and the fat content – is what makes them “dangerous” to modern man. Most seeds, including grains, were passed over because the labor involved in their gathering and their refining was prohibitive with inadequate payoff. Nuts are meaty, though, and they’re dense and (somewhat) filling. It makes sense that we easily snack on them all day, because our ancestors probably gorged themselves on nuts when they were available. We should eat them, too, but it’s important to stick to reasonable, evolutionarily realistic amounts.
Care to weigh in with your thoughts on nuts? I know a lot of forum members have reservations about them, so I’d love to hear in the comments section.
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Posted By: Mark Sisson
Mark have you read prof Brian peskins studies on omega 3 and 6 it will open your mind
So in other words, if you eat a lot of primal salmon and beef, you can eat nuts, but only a 1/4 once every few weeks or so.
Nuts have the pro-inflammatory omega-6 and many anti-nutrients. The omega-6 content of nuts can be balanced out by the DHA and EPA forms of omega-3 found ONLY in meat. Your body needs a 1:1 ratio of omega-3(DHA and EPA, not ALA) to omega-6.
So if you are a vegetarian or vegan, eating nuts would be bad for you. In fact, with all the anti-nutrients and omega-6 in nuts, it seems like they should be in the same category as grains and legumes, but that’s just my opinion.
Basically, everything you’ve heard about how nuts are supposedly healthy ARE NOT TRUE.
People really need to know the importance of balancing omega-3 to omega-6, and that only the meat forms of omega-3 (DHA and EPA) are the reliable ones. The plant form of omega-3(ALA) is the bad one because it has no use in your body. Even the omega-3 nuts don’t have the DHA and EPA, only the ALA (bad) form.
ALA isn’t necessarily bad for you. ALA can get converted by our bodies into DHA and EPA. The problem is that this is not a perfect conversion. The amount that gets converted is fairly small.
So while ALA can be converted, consuming 200 mgs of ALA does not equal the efficiency of consuing 200 mg oof either EPA or DHA since not all 200 mgs of it will be converted.
Still, some usable Omega-3 is certainly vastly preferable to none!
so are omega 6 from animal fats more valuable?
What about this study?
http://preventdisease.com/news/12/030112_World-Renown-Heart-Surgeon-Speaks-Out-On-What-Really-Causes-Heart-Disease.shtml
Mark…you mention we should roast our own nuts so as not to overcook them. Ok…but you never say what temperature and for how long
You people are nuts! Omega 6 is hardly the devil you paint it to be and eating nuts certainly isn’t detrimental to your health. In fact, one would be hard pressed to put on weight simply because they ate nuts everyday. One would have to eat POUNDS of nuts for it to have any sort of cumulative effect.
And the piddly amount of omega 6 (which is good for you) that you get in a handful of nuts is nothing to worry about. It’s sad that so many of you people are neurotic worry warts. I wish my life was so empty and pointless that I had nothing better to worry about all day than the linoleic acid in a handful of almonds. Insert eye roll here please.
Omega-6s (well, MOST Omega-6s, anyway) are pro-inflammatory and this is NOT good. It’s one of the problems of the standard American diet that it is EXTREMELY heavy in Omega-6s. Now, to some extent, Omega-3 fats can cancel the negative effects of too much Omega-6 fats. But I don’t see people (even those who supplement with fish/krill/shrimp oils) consuming near the amount of Omega-3s that it would take to equal the huge amount of Omega-6s they already intake.
Mark (and I don’t think anyone else here) is suggesting that you never consume nuts, or that you have to avoid Omega-6s like the plague. Humans NEED Omega-6s. The problem is, we are consuming VASTLY more now, than we ever were in the past. What I think is suggested here is simply bringing down your consumption of Omega-6 fats closer to the more reasonable level that Grok most likely would have consumed. Moderating nut intake is an extremely good way to bring this down to size, as is watching your oil intake.
Hello everyone,
Roasted nuts also make it hurt so I avoid them, in fact don’t consume them at all. I’ve tried soaked nuts and they seem very lively and like they say ‘Hey, I like you, eat me please, It would be my pleasure’ 
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I’ve just discovered this website, very interesting and informative I should say
Recently I’ve started on a nutty diet, eating about 200 grams of mixed nuts – almonds, hazelnuts, pistachios, dried grapes… I’ve to say that it completely fills me in (in one go) and then it’s like my stomach is totally peaceful – I don’t feel hunger, I’ve no cravings, my stomach doesn’t hurt… Fo as long as I remember myself my stomach aches when I eat cooked food (I think I have gastritis). But when I eat only nuts and fruits and veggies my stomach is at peace
Some time ago I underwent a 3-month nuts and plants diet and lost seveal pounds, I felt really energetic, really truly good! I’m starting again, with teh desire to make this my main life style for as long as I can.
Nuts are just great!!
I still like mine salted, I don’t
buy the salt is bad talk !
CLA is product in omega6.It play an important role to reduce Weight.
I don^t like nuts because they taste horrible when I tried them on my pizza.
Even on my pasta with tomatoe sauce there not good. II^l stick to peanut butter in the morning with my grains(oatmeal,whale wheat etc)
The limit my body alerts me to when I eat nuts, especially walnuts, is when my mouth and teeth get that “dry” feeling, a simple mental reminder only due how mildly uncomfortable it is, but a nice cue to stop (I wish snack foods had similar cues). So, probably about 5 big handfuls as the ultimate limit to my nut consumption, and even then I usually never get that high. I ‘ll still snack on them happily in this limited amount, however. They have a place.
Ik think nuts where large parts of the year available since they have excellent ‘shelf life’ properties as long as they are kept in their skin. So the idea we were just eaten nuts some parts of the year, needs more scientific back up. We were not just hunters but also gatherers. Even grains were eaten already 100.000 years ago (contrairy to modern paleo believe) But these where other grains, processed and eaten in other ways.
About the inflammatory effect of nuts there is more to say than just their natural omega-6 content. Roasting nuts actually means frying them, probably interchanging natural oils and water partly for the oil they are fried in (corn, soy, peanut) so that will upper their natural omega 6 / omega 3 balance. Really dry roasting probably is a little less harmful.
What about almond bread? I make it daily for my 5 boys to make sandwiches for lunch. Am I hurting my family?
I just entered my food diary on “food journal” and they said I had consumed too many omega 6′s. I had 3 eggs, about 450 – 500 gms of lamb and a handful of almonds and walnuts. I had a total of 12 gms of omega 6 and 2 gms of omega 3. Since all of this is recommended by the PB, how do I cut down my omega 6′s? The eggs are DHA enhanced eggs.
You do realise ,don’t you, that this fussing and worrying about getting the perfect ratios ,etc is going a bit too far?
Foods like nuts are perfectly fine to eat.
Don’t worry about omega 3/ 6 in nuts ; there are far more to nuts than just those 2 components. We are finding problems with foods because scientists have labeled certain parts of that food(eg vitamin D, omega 3, pantothenic acid, etc ,etc) and we learn that one component is ‘good’ or bad’..when truthfully the food is made of countless components which all act together.
There are lots of studies to show vastly improved blood profiles ,heart-health, etc from eating liberal amounts of nuts and seeds.
Here is one such paper : http://apjcn.nhri.org.tw/server/apjcn/volume17/vol17suppl.1/333-336S21-4.pdf
what nuts should be avoided?
Although the internet is awash with info about the supposed health benefits of nuts, I have recently learned that a particular nut, namely almond, is probably not so healthy for me. And I had to learn it the hard way: after eating almonds for six days in a row, I developed symptoms of what felt like carpal-tunnel syndrome (main symptom in my case was numbness in some fingers). First in my right hand and then in my left. I also experienced some mild pain in my right arm. When I ate hazelnut on one occasion during that period, within 30 minutes my symptoms worsened, despite the fact that I have never experience an adverse reaction to hazelnuts before. When I stopped eating almonds, the symptoms subsided, although it took me four days to become symptom-free.
I´m wondering how truly paleo/primal nuts really are anyhow. Now don´t get me wrong, I´m in no way some kind of paleo fundamentalist, who thinks everyone should cut out every single food item that are ancestors did not eat, even if you don’t have any adverse reactions. What I would appreciate, however, is some info about nut consumption among actual hunter-gatherers who survived into the twentieth century and not the highly speculative conjectures about ancient hunter-gatherers in the Palaeolithic. My take on this is, that the only sure thing about the Palaeolithic diet is that people ate meat, animal fats, and costal populations ate seafood. What kind of plant based foods people were eating, I think the only honest answers is: nobody knows. I just find it very odd that nuts are such potent allergens for so many people, yet there are supposed to be this health food which presumably people ate regularly for eons before agriculture. If that was true, surely we would be better adapted to them.
I am hoping that someone can enlighten me about how nuts may cause numbness in the hands. Any ideas about a possible underlying mechanism? I don’t think it can be explained as the result of excessive amounts of omega 6 oils causing inflammation because in the days when I was cooking with sunflower oil exclusively (also high in omega 6) I had never had the symptoms described above. ( Don’t get me wrong , I am not in any way advocating sunflower oil.) Oh, and by the way! The only time I did experience the numbness in my hand before was when I was taking fish oil capsules – rich in omega 3! So this is somewhat of a conundrum for me…. Any thoughts on this would be highly appreciated!
I have been eating loads of walnuts in the last year after learning they had the most optimal 3:6 ratio. Now I can see that while their 3.6 ratio is the best of all the nuts, the total amount of 6 is actually quite high compared to most other nuts.
So my question is: What is more important, the amount of omega 6 consumed in the diet, or the ratio of 3 to 6?
Thanks!!
Here some update about the strange symptoms I was having descried in my previous post. The numbness evolved gradually into travelling pain across my fingers. It is not so much that my joints hurt, but it felt as if by bones were hurting, every day a different one. In addition, there were some pins and needled sensations in fingers and my fingertips felt really sensitive. After a while the same symptoms appeared in my feet. Also both my hand and feet were at this point really cold during the day and very hot when I went to bed. And if all of this it wasn´t bad enough, I gradually lost all my appetite, I felt really tired and it was as if I was freezing inside. At this point I was panicking.
To remedy my problems, I tweaked my diet this and that way, but nothing helped. But somehow I still thought that it must be diet, because all this started happening to me when I changed my diet pretty drastically toward a more paleo type of eating. So one day out of desperation I grabbed a pack potato chips baked in sunflower oil just to eat something. I wasn´t expecting this to help my hand and feet. I was just trying to find something I still could eat because I started to lose weight pretty fast as a consequence of having no appetite at all. The same evening the pins and needles sensations subsided substantially and my hands and feet felt less hot than in the days before! Now I do think there is a strong argument for not cooking with vegetable oils due to them easily becoming rancid, so I was thinking maybe if I was to eat sunflower seeds instead, it should still do the trick. Today, after a week of eating sunflower seeds every day, my appetite is close to normal, I feel much less tired, my hand and feet are much better – no pain, they don’t get really hot in the night, although they are still quite cold during the day. Needles to say, I’m elated!
Please, please if there is someone out there who had a similar experience or any experience (good or bad) with sunflower seed or oil, share it with me. I still don’t understand was going on with me. Is it possible that I had a omega 6 deficiency? What you always hear is that it is omega 3 deficiency you should worry about. What omega 6 deficiency might lead to is almost never mentioned. I have found some mention of omega 6 deficiency leading to anorexia, joint pain, dry skin –this I have also noticed- , but the info about this on the internet very scarce. Or is it something else in sunflower oil /seeds that was responsible??? I was eating meat the whole time, that is, until I was still able to eat. Meat is supposed to be high in omega 6 if it is not grass fed and most of what I was eating was not grass fed.
This is also a cautionary tale. Be very careful when changing your diet drastically, because it might have unintended consequences, not all of it positive.