- Nuts and seed are highly nutritious and low in carbs,
perfect for you Carb Dodging diet, right?
Well, for the most part yes,
but there are exceptions that you need
to know about and even the lowest
of low carb nuts can prevent weight loss.
(upbeat rock music)
Hey Carb Dodgers, my name is Dr Dan Maggs.
So nuts and seeds are tasty, high in nutrition,
and, for the most part, low in carbs.
But despite this, nuts are one of the main sources
of problems that I see on a low carb diet.
The first reason is that there are a few nuts
that do contain higher amounts of carbohydrates,
which sometimes catch people out.
So pecan and brazil nuts are the lowest in carbs
at four grams of net carbs per 100 grams.
Macadamia nuts are another great option at five.
Hazelnuts and walnuts and peanuts
have seven net carbs per 100 grams.
Almonds are slightly higher at 10 per 100 grams.
And jumping all the way up to 18, we have pistachios
and then another big jump up to cashew nuts, right up at 27.
And theses are the nuts that you really
need to be careful of on a low carb diet.
So moving onto the seeds section.
Chia seeds are fantastic.
They're low carb at eight net carbs per 100 grams.
There are some great chia seed breakfast puddings
over on my website at carbdodging.com
if you wanna go and check those out.
Sunflower seeds have 11, sesame seeds have 12,
pumpkin seeds are pretty high at 36,
but the thing is with seeds is that we tend to use them
in such small quantities,
as it really doesn't cause too many problems
with carb counting.
So the main takeaway from this section is
really to avoid is cashew nuts
and possibly pistachios as well.
But even low carb nuts can be a bit of an issue
to people who are trying to lose weight
and it's because all nuts are very energy dense.
What do I mean by that?
I mean that, gram for gram, nuts contain a lot of calories.
So here is a good handful of pecan nuts
and it weighs about 50 grams.
And whilst that's only two grams of net carbs,
it's also 345 calories.
And nuts are an easy snack
and it's quite easy to consume a lot of them
over the course of a day and, therefore,
consume quite a lot of calories in the process,
especially salted nuts,
which are more difficult to portion control.
And if you're watching this thinking,
wow, I'd never eat that many nuts,
then you're probably safe,
but I guarantee you that there will be people
who are watching this and saying,
yeah, I could really easily eat that many nuts.
And if that's you, then beware.
And this problem is really compounded
when we look at things like nut butters,
which are basically blended up nuts.
And again, it's very easy to consume
a lot of calories in this way.
So if you are struggling to lose weight
despite a low carb diet and you're still eating nuts,
then you may wish to think about
cutting your nut intake right down
or possibly even eliminating nuts
during this particular phase of your diet.
And if you are gonna consume nut butters,
then quality is very, very important.
Have a look at these labels
that I found in the supermarket earlier today.
This one contains added sugar.
And this one contains added sugar and palm oil,
pretty nasty stuff.
You want either pure blended nuts,
such as in this almond one
or you want just nuts and a bit of sea salt,
such as in this peanut butter one.
And whilst we're on the issue of quality,
many of you will notice that nuts can go a bit rancid
and start to taste quite horrible.
The fat in nuts is mainly polyunsaturated fat,
which means it will react with air.
So be sure to keep nuts at the very least
in air sealed container
and you can keep them in the fridge
or the freezer in order to slow down
this process of oxidizing.
So that's it for today.
Remember, cashews nuts are pretty high in carbs.
Pistachio nuts, they are also fairly high in carbs.
You may wanna limit those.
And really, if you're struggling to lose weight
on a low carb diet,
but you are, you know you're keeping the carbs low,
then the sheer amount of calories
that you find even in quite a small number of nuts
may be causing you a problem.
And you may wish to eliminate that from your diet.
So that's it for today, guys.
This video is part of a playlist.
I'm gonna link that up in the top corner here
and at the end of this video.
That playlist is all about
what can you eat on a low carb diet.
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I release new videos on this topic every Tuesday,
so please check those out
and I will see you next Tuesday.
(upbeat rock music)