Looking To Beat Trans Fat? Try Walnuts

Those looking to fight the effects of fatty foods may want to get cracking.

Eating walnuts after an unhealthy meal may aid in reducing damage to arteries, a study released yesterday says.

The study, conducted in Spain, comes two weeks after the city's Department of Health and Mental Hygiene proposed a partial phase-out of trans fats in all New York City restaurants. The walnuts findings were published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology (and some of the funds for the study were provided by the California Walnuts Commission).

Their investment may have paid off, as some New Yorkers said they would begin capping off their fatty meals with walnuts. "Now, I'm just going to start sprinkling walnuts on everything: hot dogs, fries, Big Macs," Anita Tipirneni, a 24-year-old administrative assistant from Queens, said.

While such a strategy may protect arteries, chasing a cheeseburger with a walnut salad will not eradicate caloric problems. According to the Walnuts Commission, the nuts are a concentrated source of calories and people should limit their daily intake to about a handful.

A nutrition professor at New York University, Sharron Dalton, said that while walnuts reduce the harm caused by trans fats, they are no dieter's dream. "There are as many calories in walnut oil as there are in oils that have trans fats in them," Ms. Dalton said. "While trans fats are bad for the cardiovascular system, we do have an obesity epidemic."

Walnuts contain an amino acid that combats artery inflammation and oxidation caused by foods high in saturated or trans fats. The nuts also have many antioxidants and an omega-3 fatty acid, which have been shown to have health benefits. Olive oil, a staple of the Mediterranean diet, has already been shown to have some of the same positive effects.

For the study, a team at Barcelona's Hospital Clinic took 24 adults and gave them two high-fat salami and cheese meals, eaten one week apart. The subjects ended the first meal with five tablespoons of olive oil, and the second with eight shelled walnuts. Both chasers proved effective in limiting the effects of bad fats on the cardiovascular system.

A dietician for the Walnuts Commission, Amy Myrdal, said her organization has been sponsoring research since the 1990s and that the results have led to consistent improvements in walnut sales.

In a 2004 book, a San Diego doctor, Steven Pratt, named walnuts as one of 14 "SuperFoods." He said eating walnuts could promote health and longevity.

"We've gotten a lot of attention as a health food," Ms. Myrdal said. "People casually refer to walnuts as a ‘super food,' so the apple a day metaphor is definitely appropriate."

Still, she said that when it comes to your diet, don't mistake those sugary nuts on the street for a healthy choice. Ms. Myrdal said that "no matter how good they smell, those candied nuts on the corners will never be healthy." The English walnut, the most prevalent of its kind in America, is also the healthiest, with six times the nutritious fatty acid content of Black walnuts, she said.

That's why Katherine Groff, a 52-year-old nut-grower from Lancaster, Pa., said she tries to slip English walnuts into her meals as often as possible. "I do my best to cook with those ones as much as I can," she said. "They have just about everything you need for your system in one little nut."