It's Eric Bakker, the naturopath. How's everyone going out there?
Many times, when I look on the internet, I read things for example, about nut allergies.
And people will say, "I've got an allergy towards nuts. I've got to avoid all nuts."
And I say, "Well, what do you mean you've got an allergy towards all nuts?
Have you got an allergy or not? Are you sure? Have you had a test done?
Have you had blood testing done? Have you had any kind of antibody testing done?" And many times,
it's, "No, I haven't, but when I eat them, I get an itchy nose or I get an itchy throat."
And then my next question would be, "Tell me more about what you eat, how many nuts you eat."
And what always surprised me was the quantity of nuts people seemed to eat. And we're talking
not three, four or five nuts or a small amount. We're talking like a bowl of nuts.
We're talking maybe half a pound or quarter of a pound of nuts in one sitting. We're talking about
someone sitting there, having a glass of whatever in front of whatever they're watching, or with
friends, or at a party, just eating nuts. This is not how you eat nuts. If I were to sit down
night after night, or two or three times per week with a bowl of nuts, I'd probably feel sick too.
Nuts have super, super concentrated foods. Try and remember that. They're very concentrated.
Because from a nut, a tree grows. It's big. To me, it's no different from eating 12 or 15
eggs a day. It's just not something you really do. Eggs are very concentrated too. So eggs,
you'd limit to one or two per day, not six or eight per day. It's not sustainable long term.
Any kind of food, a powerful food like a nut, that you're eating consistently in large amounts
is going to stimulate some type of problem in the body. I've always seen this with patients,
particularly when it comes to things like Brazil nuts, walnuts, peanuts, anything like that at all.
I don't consider peanuts a nut anyway. I think they're pretty crappy food. And
I don't think peanut butter or peanuts are really a good food to eat for the gut. Maybe if you had
two or three, but to me they're just not really good. I can't see much benefit coming from them.
I see the supreme nuts being almonds, Brazils, walnuts, macadamias, pecans, hazelnuts. These
are good nuts, especially if they're fresh and raw and not roasted or full of salt.
I grow my own almonds and I can tell you now, fresh almonds are so sweet,
it's almost like someone's poured honey on them. They're crazy how sweet and juicy they are
compared to the shriveled up things you buy in the shop.
When you get used to eating high quality nuts, like I have,
and it's not uncommon for me to purchase nuts and then eat one and toss the bag out or take it back
to the store and saying these are stale. So many people eat stale nuts. Many people eat expired
nuts. Many people eat too many nuts. So these are things I need to clarify with patients before I
even go further looking at any kind of test. And then the next question to the person is,
after how many nuts do you eat, is what other foods stimulate this type of response.
And oftentimes, I'll hear its other foods as well. So when I understand the psychology of the person,
their behaviors, sometimes they're linked to their so-called allergy.
And particularly when it comes to the quantity of what they eat, and the quality of what they eat.
So when we look at walnuts, walnuts are not a nut I typically see in an allergy profile of people.
On rare occasions, have I seen it come up as a type one, or a type three response, IgE or IgG
response on a food allergy test. I do see nuts coming up from time to time. And generally,
if I do see that, they're a type one response, which is an IgE mediated response, which can be
immediate. So the person could eat a few nuts and get scratchy throat
or sneezing, or have some symptom quite quick. The smaller the quantity to invoke the reaction,
obviously the more careful you need to be with a nut. But I can tell you now,
black walnut, hulled or extract, is made from this hull that goes around the walnut.
Now I don't have walnut tree on my property because they're too big. Otherwise, I'd love to
have one. But what I don't like about walnuts is the black crap from the trees. I've got a
friend who's got one and they've got a tannin in them, this black tannin, and that's where
this black extract comes from. So if we get a piece of paper and then we draw the walnut,
and I'm just going to make a little picture here for you.
So that's not an egg, by the way. That's a walnut and you can see the little ring
around it. That's the hull. Where's my pen? So that's the hull that goes around it.
So I've harvested or picked many walnuts up off the ground. There's two types I've found
here in New Zealand. We've got the small one and we've got the big English ones.
And fresh walnuts are beautiful, really creamy and nice to eat.
So the hull, walnut grows on the tree and it drops, it's often in a green encasement.
You break open the casing and there's this hull and then the nut inside it.
So the hull's the peel around the actual nut and it's black. And if you get that black tannin
on your clothes, it can sometimes be almost like tire, impossible to get off. So this stuff's
called tannin. So tannin's a particular chemicals that are very astringent and very powerful.
We got tannins in tea, for example, and tannins can make your mouth quite dry. There are tannins
in wines. Red wines contain many tannins. Tannins give flavor and taste, but also health properties.
Tannins in green tea can give really good health properties for the heart and the brain,
for example. There is many tannins in nature.
But black walnut's got a specific tannin that's anti-parasitic and it's quite powerful. If you've
got a very strong allergy to nuts, you don't touch walnuts. But we're talking one in a million.
Of all the patients I've seen, I've only ever seen probably two or three out of many thousands of
people that have got such an exquisite allergy to nuts that they can't tolerate walnuts.
But they're very, very rare cases. To me, it's something I don't commonly see.
So when someone says, "I've got a nut allergy," I'm going to start to think, "Hmm, is this that
one in a million person? Don't know." So just be careful before you jump into the category saying,
"I've got nut allergies, I'm allergic to this. I'm allergic to that."
Because you may not be allergic. You may just have a really upset gut
or poor digestive system that can't break those types of proteins and fats down properly yet.
So perhaps if you start with one walnut per day for a period of two or three weeks and
then play it by ear, see how that goes, instead of going straight into a handful of nuts and saying,
"No, they don't suit me." Never jump into a powerful food that you haven't eaten much
previous into large quantities regularly. It's got to be very slow. I've eaten nuts all my life.
And even I would never eat any more than two or three walnuts in a day. It's excessive. I eat two
Brazil nuts every day. Don't eat anymore. I get plenty of selenium from two Brazil nuts a day.
A patient made me laugh years ago, who came in with a horrible skin rash,
terrible. And I'd seen this guy many times before and he said, "I've got a bad nut allergy." I said,
"What do you mean?" And then he dropped a bag of Brazil nuts on the table. I said,
"Nut allergy?" Now this is a 500 gram bag of nuts, a big bag. And I said, "How many do you eat?"
And he said about half a bag a day. And then, well, I burst out laughing and I said, "Well,
I can see where the allergy's coming from. It's called over consumption."
So just be careful not to fall into that category. The more concentrated the nut, like
walnuts, Brazils, you start slowly and then you build up from there. Even best to give
yourself a break and maybe work on the stomach and the pancreas more with enzymes and then try
a few months later. You might be very surprised that all of a sudden there's no allergy anymore.
But don't fear the black walnut hull. Just keep it away from your clothes. Thanks for tuning in.