Pecans Are Healthy Nuts

Pecans Are Healthy Nuts

The most crucial diseases  that are harmful for the healthy living of an individual are the results of diet having  high amount of saturated fats. In these diseases, one like   arteriosclerosis, the high amount of fat in the form of cholesterol is deposited on the heart, which is transferred to the whole body with the help of blood.

The lipoprotein, created from the combination of cholesterol and lipids, are of two forms, Low Density Lipoprotein (LDL) and High Density Lipoprotein (HDL), both being harmful to the health.

In order to decrease the amount of cholesterol getting deposited in our body, one has to keep a check on the intake of the highly saturated fats in his or her diet. It should form just 10 percent of the total calories to be consumed.

The sources of unsaturated fats must be chosen carefully, as it is not necessary that all the sources are useful for the process of controlling the fat content in our body. It has been proved that the consumption of polyunsaturated fats results in the decrease of both HDL and LDL, whereas the mono-unsaturated fats only helps in reducing LDL level.

There have been quite a number of researches that have proved the above written facts. The person under observation is fed with a diet containing about 40% of the fats from different sources of saturated and unsaturated fats.

The source of unsaturated fats consists of both monounsaturated as well as polyunsaturated sources.

The conclusion of the above observation is that LDL was reduced in level due to both types of unsaturated fats, whereas the level of HDL is reduced more by the polyunsaturated fats sources.

If the comparison is made between the diet containing high content of mono-saturated fats (about 40% keeping the carbohydrates as low as 43%) and the diet containing low fat content (just about 20% with about 63% of carbohydrates), one finds that the former is more effective in reducing the level of LDL than the HDL level.

Also, the latter successfully lowered the amount of both HDL as well as LDL. Thus, one can conclude that the diet having high content of mono-saturated fats works at the same level as the low fat diet having the high content of carbohydrates.

The pecan nuts are found to be a good source of polyunsaturated fats, as they contains around 70% of oils, out of which oleic acid forms 65% and linoleic acid forms the 26% of the total oils.

It is desirable to have a greater percentage of oleic acid in the pecan nuts. The ratio of oleic acid and linoleic acid varies in different varieties of these nuts.