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Alexa Fleckenstein M.D.

Blog: On Health. On Writing. On Life. On Everything.

Nuts and Seeds 1

June 14, 2010
Tags: food, binging, calories, carbohydrates, chewing, cravings, doughnuts, enzymes, fat, minerals, nuts, Nuts and Seeds 1, phyto-nutrients, proteins, vitamins, weight
Nuts would be the ideal food if it were not for their fats and calories. True? The problem with nuts and seeds is not their fat contents; it is that we don't regard them as food; we eat them as snacks. Which is to say, we eat already too much at lunch and dinner, and in between we delight in the taste of nuts. Uh-oh. Thus their calories will end up on our hips. But if your lunch would be a handful of almonds and a fresh fruit, you would get your all your nutrition requirements in an ideal vehicle: • Nuts don't need refrigeration (at least not in the short run) or re-warming • Nuts contain all three major building blocks - proteins, carbohydrates and fats - mostly 'good' fats • Nuts are full of minerals and vitamins • Nuts are full of enzymes - and enzyme inhibitors. They contain natural and essential phyto-nutrients, and we are just beginning to understand their importance for health. How do the enzymes work in the nut? Nuts and seeds are carrying within them the ability with sprouting new life - all what they need is water. For creating new life, hundreds of actions to build future plant tissue are required. And for those actions to happen, the seed is packed with enzymes. But the actions should not happen prematurely, while the conditions are not right yet. To hinder too early action, nuts and seeds contain enzyme inhibitors. The moment one adds water, one destroy the enzyme inhibitors - basically, the germinating starts. Soaking nuts and seeds in water over night also makes nuts more easily digestible. Nuts might help weight loss. Weight loss on nuts? Am I nuts? Indeed, nuts and seeds can help lose weight - despite their infamous fats. • Nuts need thorough chewing. And one reason of binge eating is that a gallon of ice cream, soda pops and donuts do not satisfy your jaws' desire to chew. There's nothing more satisfying than crunching your way through a handful of nuts. • The high fat content of nuts and their enzyme inhibitors delay stomach emptying, making nuts last longer. In comparison, sugar and starches (which are nothing more than one sugar molecule after the other in a long chain) will be digested in seconds - and will you make crave more soon. • Nuts quench cravings by offering many nutrients. Quench cravings? How does it work? If one eats a doughnut, one basically eats a ball of starch and sugar, baked in bad fats, coated and sprinkled with sugar. Its white flour is devoid of any of the bran, good oils, minerals and vitamins the wheat grain originally possessed - everything has been milled out. After one doughnut, your brain feels a wonderful rush of incoming brain fuel - sugar - and wants more of the same. So you eat another one. Your brain feels high, but your body screams for the rest of the stuff that used to come with sugar and fat: the minerals, the vitamins, the enzymes. Not knowing better what your body really wants, you grab a third doughnut.
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