Will you gain weight if you eat nuts?

The Australian Dietary Guidelines say that we should eat 30 grams (1 ounce) of nuts each day, which is about a small handful. But most of us know that nuts have a lot of fat and calories.

So, should we eat nuts, or will they make us fat?

In short, yes, we should eat them, and no, eating them in moderation won’t make us gain weight. Most of the fats in nuts are “good” fats.

Aside from that, our bodies don’t actually take in all the fat that nuts contain. But we do get the vitamins and minerals they give us.

Dietary fat: friend or foe?

Nuts do have fat, but the amount of fat in each type of nut is different. For instance, 30 grams (0.5 ounces) of raw cashews or pistachios have about 15 grams (0.5 ounces) of fat, while the same amount of raw macadamias has about 22 grams (0.7 ounces) of fat (0.7 ounces).

There are different kinds of fats in our food, and some are better for us than others. Most of the fats in nuts are monounsaturated or polyunsaturated.

“Good fats” are these kinds of fats. When we eat them instead of saturated fats, they can help lower cholesterol.

Different nuts have different kinds of fats. For instance, walnuts have a lot of polyunsaturated fat, while hazelnuts and macadamia nuts have more monounsaturated fat.

What the facts show

Even though the fat in nuts is healthy, they still have a lot of fat and calories. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid them to keep our weight under control.

Long-term studies that looked at what people ate and how much weight they gained found that people who regularly ate nuts gained less weight than those who didn’t.

In clinical studies that asked people to eat nuts and then looked at how their weight changed, we see the same pattern.

A review of more than 30 studies looked at what happens to your weight when you eat nuts. Compared to a control group of people who didn’t eat nuts, people who ate nuts did not gain weight, have a higher body mass index (BMI), or have a bigger waist circumference.

In fact, one study found that people who ate nuts lost more body fat than those who didn’t eat nuts when they followed a diet plan to lose weight.

Let’s figure it out

There are a few reasons why eating nuts doesn’t seem to make you gain weight.

1. Not all of the fat in nuts gets into our bodies: The fat in nuts is stored in the cell walls, which are tough and don’t break down easily when you eat them. Because of this, we don’t take in all of the fat when we eat nuts. Instead, some of the fat comes out in our poop. We might get between 5 and 30 percent fewer calories from nuts than we thought before.
2. Nuts make us burn more calories. We don’t absorb all of the calories in nuts, and eating nuts may also make us burn more energy and fat. Some people think that the protein and unsaturated fats in nuts may have something to do with this, but we don’t know for sure. We can keep the same weight or lose weight if we burn more calories.
3. Nuts help us feel full longer because they are full of fat, protein, and fiber. So, eating nuts makes us feel full longer, which means we might eat less at later meals. Recent studies have also shown that giving people nuts makes the overall quality of the foods they eat better. This could be because nuts are used as snacks instead of “junk foods.”
4. In general, people who eat nuts live healthier lives: We can’t say for sure that eating nuts is a sign of living a healthier life. Randomized controlled trials, on the other hand, which can control for lifestyle factors like eating habits, find that eating nuts has no effect on body weight. This means that the good effects of nuts aren’t just because people who eat nuts live healthier lives. The nuts themselves also play a role.

Overall, the evidence suggests that nuts are a healthy snack that can give us many of the nutrients our bodies need. We don’t have to worry about how eating the 30g of nuts a day that is recommended for a healthy diet will affect our waistlines.