Nut-trition, the good, the bad, and the ugly

When you start trying to improve your nutrition, adding nuts is a great way to add protein and nutrition to your diet, but it can also be your biggest downfall if you are not careful.  When it comes to just plain old nuts, try to choose almonds or pistachios and pay attention to the serving sizes and measure them out before you dig in to the package or you will quickly go over your serving and sabotage yourself before you know it.  I like buying prepackaged individual servings of pistachios in bulk from Sam's Club or you could purchase a large bag and measure out the servings and place them in individual bags to have on hand for snacks.  This is very helpful for a grab and go snack.  One thing that you have to do is read the labels.  There are so many "gourmet" nuts out there that have so many additives that are simply not good for you.  Pay attention to sugar and sodium content and you will be surprised at what you find on the labels.  Many of these so called "gourmet" nuts taste heavenly because they are terrible for you.  Make sure there are only a few simple ingredients like nuts, spices, and salt. 

Nut butters are a great way to fuel up on protein and energy both before and after workouts but again the serving sizes must be noted.  Most nut butters have a serving size of two tablespoons.  I recently went to the grocery store in search of a nutritious almond butter and guess what, I didn't find one.  I'm sure the people around me probably thought I was crazy because I must have been looking at labels for 20-30 minutes.  I read labels for every type of nut butter spread that the store had (and it was quite a few).  What I found was that even the so called "natural" nut butters had sugar added to them and even the ones that were supposed to be light or reduced calorie still had sugar added to them.  There were three types of almond butter on the shelf, one was honey almond butter, another was caramel almond butter, and the other was chocolate almond butter.  To top it off, one of these almond butters was $8 per jar.  If it was seriously good for you and the top of the line nutrition, I might consider it, but really?!!!!  The next thing I want you to steer clear of is hazelnut spreads.  These are full of sugar and void of nutrition, no matter what Kelly Ripa says.  Yesterday I saw her promoting the health benefits of Jif Hazelnut spread and I can tell you that she does not look the way she does by eating that everyday.  Matter of fact, I read an article that said she has a personal trainer that she works with for 90 minutes four to five days per week and she practices clean, healthy eating.  Hazelnut spread does not fall into that category!  I did recently read about a peanut butter substitute called PB2.  It is a little pricey, and there is sugar in the ingredients, but when I looked at the calories per serving, I realized that the sugar content could not be that high.  I tried it and it actually tastes pretty good.  To get the same protein amount as a serving of peanut butter, you have to double the serving, which results in 90 calories, but that is still about half the amount of calories as regular peanut butter.  It is made from roasting the peanuts and then pressing them to remove the fat and then grinding it to a powder.  You can sprinkle it on foods or reconstitute it with water to make a spread that actually spreads very much like peanut butter.  I am not recommending this because it is pricey and it has added sugar, but it is a viable alternative.  Best wishes to your wellness!