We’re nuts about about saving time and living longer. Here’s why:

I don’t know about you, but the thing I value most in life is time. Time to smile, time to laugh, time to love. With my favourite moments being when I spend time with family and friends.

So when I heard about an incredibly easy life habit to adopt to get more of it, I was very interested.

And if you are anything like me, you’ll want to take note of this too.

Piet van den Brandt and Leo Schouten are two bright sparks who have been undertaking research since 1986. Their study analysed over 120,000 people and identified the key to reducing the risk of an early death by 23%.

Now I know that stat has gone quite morbid quite quickly, but by preventing an early death you’ll have more time to spend it with those you love.

So, what is the secret?

Piet and Leo’s 19-year research found that by eating a handful of nuts every day, you’ll live younger.

A handful is only about 15g. Not much at all – and a small sacrifice to live longer. Especially if you love nuts.

Having said that if you are allergic to nuts and carry around an EpiPen like my aunt, that is actually a pretty massive sacrifice. Having a blow up every day is not fun nor advisable. Luckily for you nut allergics out there, we have good news for you. Stay with us here and read on.

If you would like to go deep and technical, the study found an average 23% lower risk of 10-year mortality across all diseases. Specifically a decrease of:

1. 30% for diabetes

2. 39% for respiratory disease

3. 45% for neurodegenerative disease

So if you’re like me and a fan of nuts, this is great news. You now have very good reason to eat them every day. You get to live longer and they’re super tasty. Win: Win.

Peanut butter ingredient list: longer life not included

health differences between peanuts and peanut butter

Now I’m no big fan of peanut butter. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in particular have forever bewildered my taste buds.

Fortunately for me, I now have the perfect excuse to demand peanuts in their raw form and eshew the peanut butter.

To get technical again, peanut butter contains added ingredients like salt, vegetable oils and trans fatty acids making their composition very different from peanuts. It is the mix of these ingredients together that has been found to inhibit the health benefits found naturally in peanuts.

Consequently, Piet and Leo found no correlation between intake and reduced mortality rates. Our advice is therefore to stick to raw unprocessed nuts.

Good news for those who are allergic to nuts

If you are a natural skeptic, you might be puzzled as to how these two researchers managed to isolate nut intake amongst all the other variables that 120,000 people would have found in their daily lives. In fact, we’d go so far as to say it is impossible.

Fortunately, the two professors kept tabs on the overall eating habits of the study participants.

They found that those who ate a portion of nuts every day had two other vitally important attributes over those that did not eat nuts daily:

1. They ate more fruit and vegetables

2. They were leaner

Identifying those two factors, alongside nut consumption, means that really the key to living a longer life is live a healthy lifestyle. You need to make sure that you eat your five-a-day, and get plenty of exercise to stay fit.

Nuts are a fantastic source of nutrients. So eating a handful of nuts a day should be considered part of the package to being a healthy person. And with that comes living longer and increasing your likelihood of being disease free.

And that makes me feel warm and fuzzy.

Living and eating healthily helps you to live longer. You’ll gain time enabling you to smile more, laugh more and love more.

What a wonderful way to live your life.

Don’t forget you can maintain your healthy lifestyle by having a wholesome snack from the Pantry every day at work. Make sure you don’t miss out. Learn more here →

If you enjoyed reading this, you’ll be interested in how you can make better decisions during your day →

What’s your favourite nut?

We love Tiger nuts. If you haven’t tried them, tell us below and we’ll send you a sample.

Reference:

Piet A. van den Brandt, Leo J. Schouten. Relationship of tree nut, peanut, and peanut butter intake with total and cause-specific mortality: a cohort study and meta-analysis. International Journal of Epidemiology, June 2015.

What's so good about nuts?

Peanut butter ingredient list: longer life not included

Good news for those who are allergic to nuts