Good news—for your heart and your wallet.
Researchers increasingly have been touting the benefits of nuts for protecting us from ailments ranging from cognitive decline to heart disease to high cholesterol.
But nut consumption may not be easy on your wallet. Almonds, cashews and walnuts can all take a sizeable bite out of your grocery budget.
Enter the peanut. Although technically not a nut at all (it’s a legume), Harvard University scientists have recently published new research showing that the humble peanut can hold its own nutritionally against the loftier tree nuts.
In the international study of more than 200,000 people, scientists found that those who regularly consumed peanuts and other nuts were less likely to have died of any cause—especially heart disease—during the study than those who rarely ate nuts, the university reports.
“This confirms what we found a few years ago—and our results were greeted with intense skepticism,” Dr. Meir Stampfer, professor of nutrition and epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, says in a news release. “Botanically, peanuts are not nuts, but nutritionally they are very similar to tree nuts, and other studies have shown their benefits.”
