Cashew nuts are local to Brazil, where they are considered as a rich nourishing food. Cashews provide exceptional health benefits that set them apart from other nuts.
Cashew nuts have become prevalent all through the globe for their delicious flavor and health advantages. Cashews are only available without their shell in the market. Their shell contains an oil that isn’t good for humans health. You have the option to buy roasted cashews, raw cashews, seasoned cashews, or salted cashews.
Prepared and seasoned with different flavorings. You have many choices to use cashews like add them to salad bowls, eat as a snack, smoothies, stir-fries, and baking.
Would cashews increase cholesterol?
Coronary illness remains No. 1 reason for death among Americans. The main reason behind that is a high amount of bad blood fats or high cholesterol levels. People need to cut off the high-fat foods from their diet.
High-fat foods are not good for your health and they raise bad cholesterol in your blood (LDL). Cashew nuts contain healthy saturated fats. I have never heard that saturated fat raises bad cholesterol (LDL) levels.
You don’t need to worry, cashew nuts are good for you and provide many health benefits. The impact of cashews on your cholesterol is considered good not bad.
What is cholesterol and how high cholesterol damages health?
Cholesterol is basically a waxy substance that human bodies need in little sum to work properly. There are two kinds of cholesterol in human bodies good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Good cholesterol is also known as HDL and bad cholesterol is also known as LDL.
Health issues emerge when bad cholesterol levels increase in your blood. This waxy substance could block arteries which cause heart attack and stroke.
Good Cholesterol VS Bad Cholesterol
Cholesterol bundled in transporters called lipoproteins. Low-density lipoprotein (LDL) is viewed as an undesirable type of cholesterol. Since it goes around storing cholesterol in your organs and tissues. You need to keep LDL values below 100mg/deciliter.
High-density lipoprotein is considered as good cholesterol. It helps to clear up fat and takes it to your liver for further processing. You need to keep HDL values over 60mg/deciliter.
Are cashew nuts good to lower the bad cholesterol levels?
According to nutritionists, cashew nuts contain healthy fats and most of the fats are unsaturated fat. Unsaturated fat is good for heart health.
Two ounce serving of cashews provides 2g of saturated fat and 16g of unsaturated fat. Eating cashew nuts help to reduce LDL level and total cholesterol. You can add them in moderate quantity to any kind of eating plan.
According to a group of nutritionists, cashews are good to maintain HDL cholesterol and circulatory strain. They published the following result in the Journal of Nutrition’s January 2018 issue.
Nutritionists conduct a study on a group of 20 people. They add cashew nuts in their diet for 12 weeks. After the study they found, cashew intake helps to increase HDL values and lower the LDL values. Cashews not only increase HDL values but also lower the pulse rate.
Nutritionists recommend adding nuts including cashews in your diet is good for better health.
Would cashew nuts able to control cholesterol?
Many Americans suffer from high cholesterol. High cholesterol leads them to danger of atherosclerosis, stroke, or heart attack. The main reason behind high cholesterol is because of the wrong diet. Some of the time high cholesterol problems are hereditary or called “familial hypercholesterolemia.”
Just 1 out of 500 people is a victim of familial hypercholesterolemia. The main reason behind high cholesterol is a wrong diet. According to nutritionists, dietary modifications could be helpful to control cholesterol. Controlled cholesterol means less cardiovascular problems.
If you can make changes in your daily routine and eating habits, you can control cholesterol and lower the risk of cardiovascular illness. I generally recommend starting with the addition of nuts including cashew nuts.
Why we need to add cashew nuts in diet?
We need a balanced diet for good health so, we need to add nourishing foods in our diet. Add vegetables, organic products, nuts, and whole grains in your diet. If you are non-vegans you can add meat. Tempeh and tofu are good substitutes for meat. If you are going to add meat in your diet eat little bits and use the fricassee method.
Cashew nuts contain healthy fats. Adding healthy fat in your diet provides benefits to the heart and overall health. Most of the Americans are not getting significant amount of Omega-3 unsaturated fats. Sardines and salmon are considered as the best sources for Omega-3 unsaturated fat.
Other sources of high-fat food for a healthy heart are seeds, avocados, nuts including cashews, and coconut. Nuts especially tree nuts (except peanuts) are undoubtedly high in fat. The good thing is that most of these fats are a healthy and unsaturated type of fat. Each nut proposes its own particular advantages. The most common thing about nuts is that they contain sterols, solid fats, nutrients, fiber, and minerals.
How to add cashew nuts in your daily eating plan to control cholesterol?
Raw nuts offer more and best health advantages. Salted cashews taste better than raw but they contain high measures of sodium. You must add unsalted cashews to your diet. Add cashews to a bowl of salad, meals, or pan-fried food.
You can also use the cashew butter spread with a whole-grain toast. Nuts are a perfect snack for any time. If you like snacking cashew nuts are a perfect substitute for any high starch and sugar snack. They taste incredible and provide a fuller feeling. Another advantage of cashew snacking is that they do not cause an increase in glucose levels. Seeds like pumpkin seed and sunflower seeds provide comparative benefits.
According to research cashew nuts are the third most used nuts in the United States. Mostly nutritionists prescribe nuts to control cholesterol. This is because they have more significant amounts of saturated fat content stearic acid. Stearic acid helps to control high cholesterol.
What research reveals about the impact of cashew nuts on cholesterol?
Nutritionists, dietitians, and researches prescribe and list cashew nuts in healthy nuts. According to a research results, people who added cashew nuts to their usual diet for 28 days show lower LDL and higher HDL levels.
Nutritionists replaced cashews with potato chips for an extra 28 days and got similar results. There were no noteworthy contrasts in HDL and triglycerides for either cashew nuts or potato chips.
It farfetched that cashews could help to control cholesterol levels. You must include cashew nuts in your healthy diet with a regular exercise program to be fit and healthy.
Cashew nuts could aid or support to enhance blood cholesterol levels. As indicated by an examination in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition. This study was financed by the Kraft Heinz Company of nuts.
Nutritionists conduct a study on a group of 50 healthy people with high cholesterol. One group ate an average American diet including cashews and another group ate potato chips instead of cashew. This diet routine is intended to keep up body weight. After 30 days, who ate cashews in their diet, their total cholesterol dropped by around 4% and their LDL dropped by 5%. On the other group who ate potato chips, there were no critical impacts.
Like most nuts cashew nuts also wealthy in unsaturated fats and sterols, both known to bring down blood cholesterol.
Would cashews nuts good for you to eat and helps to control cholesterol?
Cashews contain high fats. The high-fat content is always a concern among nuts. You don’t need to worry about the high-fat content of cashews. Because cashews high-fat content contains more healthy fats than other nuts.
Most of the fats of cashew are healthy fats. Cashew nuts are good to reduce the low-density lipoprotein (LDL) and increase high-density lipoprotein (HDL).
Healthy Fats of Cashew Nuts
Cashew nuts are high-fat nuts. High-fat content especially saturated fat may be dangerous for your health. You are at risk especially if you are experiencing high cholesterol problems. Saturated fats found in meat, margarine, and cheese trigger high cholesterol levels.
As you know cashews are high-fat nuts, but you don’t need to worry most of the fats are healthy fats (monounsaturated fat). Monounsaturated fat aid or support to lower bad cholesterol levels (LDL). According to the American Heart Association, monounsaturated fat is good to lower cardiovascular problems. Other sources of monounsaturated fat than nuts are seeds, olive oil, and avocados.
Fiber in Cashew Nuts
Alongside healthy fats, cashew nuts are a great source of soluble fiber. Soluble fiber is a kind of starch that goes through your body undigested. This soluble fiber assimilates in water to form a thick gel. This assimilation of fiber keeps your body from absorbing some dietary cholesterol. Adding soluble fiber to your diet may reduce LDL cholesterol levels. Other sources of soluble fiber are beans, whole grains, peas, and grains.
Many investigations proved that nuts are a healthy food to control cholesterol levels. A study published in the “English Journal of Nutrition” in 2006. Nutritionists found that a diet plan wealthy in tree nuts including cashew nuts lower the bad cholesterol (LDL) level by 3% to 19%.
The study also found the positive impact of fiber, anti-cancer agents, and sterols of cashews. Sterols are considered as obstructers of the assimilation.
Conclusion:
Cashew nuts are considered as healthy nuts, but these nuts are also caloric nuts. One ounce serving contains 163 calories, they could rapidly prompt weight gain.
Eating 3 ounces of cashews provides 489 calories which are 25% of your needs in a 2,000 calorie diet. Eating a more significant amount of calories than you consume for power prompts weight gain. Being overweight could expand levels of LDL cholesterol. Eat cashews in moderate quantity to be fit and healthy. One ounce serving is enough for you to add in your daily eating plan. Always keep an eye on your cholesterol levels while eating cashews. If you found any problem stop eating cashews and immediately consult with your doctor.