Well, at least not roasted nuts from the store.
Ok, so it is not about the fats- right? We know this. It takes fat to make healthy brain cells. It takes fat to make hormones. It takes fat to burn fat. Our fat free, high sugar, processed food days are behind us.
When is fat not healthy? When it is oxidized. Fat in the presence of high heat–fat becomes oxidized and toxic.
This is one of the reasons we eat only raw nuts and seeds during the 21 Day Metabolic Cleanse.
Now, I love the taste of roasted nuts and I believe they can be a healthy addition to the diet when you roast them yourself.
When you buy roasted nuts at the store–
- They can be roasted with unhealthy oils like canola oil
- After being roasted, they are exposed to oxygen by sitting around on the grocery shelf
- They can be roasted with processed salt, which we want to avoid
Nuts are really healthy but when we buy roasted nuts and seeds from the grocery store we really don’t know how they have been prepared and stored–are they really healthy anymore?
The solution is to roast your own nuts and seeds and this is how you do it.
Roasted Nuts Recipe
Use whatever spices you like. Experiment with different nuts and seeds.
- Preheat oven to 325
- Mix spices in a bowl and set aside
- Heat oil in a skillet over low heat. Add spices and simmer for 5 minutes.
- Place nuts in a mixing bowl and pour spice/oil mixture over to coat
- Spread on a baking sheet and bake for about 15 minutes. Shake the pan a few times while in the oven. Watch the nuts–they quickly become over cooked!
- Toss the nuts with any leftoever spice mixture at the bottom of the pan.
- sprinkle with sea salt and let cool. Store in airtight container.
If you have not done this before, you are in for a treat. You can season them to your liking, they are super simple and so delicious, I promise you will never buy roasted nuts again!
Recipe Adapted from The New Basics Cookbook by Rosso and Lukins.
If you need more convincing about the health benefits of nuts and seeds,
check out my blog post, Who Should Eat Nuts
By Sherri Jacobs
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/s58y/4415406430/”>s58y</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>