The perfect snacks – packed with protein, fibre and essential fats! It’s Nut week at Big Barn

With a lot of people trying more plant-based diets on the back of viral documentaries like The Game Changers, one group of foods which has been getting a lot of attention are nuts! They’re a brilliant snack – packed with protein, fibre and essential fats, nuts are one of the best foods to put in your body.

Let’s lock off with 5 fun facts about nuts:

1. Packed with protein, fibre and essential fats, nuts are one of the best foods to put in your body, especially when snack time rolls around.

2. A golf ball-sized portion (about 30g) is enough to contribute a mix of valuable vitamins and minerals and are said to boost heart health.
3. Most Brazil nuts (which also are not nuts) come not from Brazil but northern Bolivia.

4. According to a recent poll, nuts are our sixth favourite TV snack behind crisps, chocolate bars, fresh fruit, sandwiches and ice-cream.
5. The game of conkers, played with horse chestnuts, was first seen in the mid-19th century. Before that, it was played with snails.

As you’d expect then, different nuts offer completely different nutritional benefits, for example almonds are packed with Vitamin E, Brazil nuts boast selenium, while cashews are bursting with iron and zinc.

It is said that people who eat nuts as part of a heart-healthy diet can lower the low-density lipoprotein (LDL, or “bad”) cholesterol level in their blood. Having elevated LDL is one of the primary causes of heart disease. When you bundle that in with the fact that eating nuts may also reduce your risk of developing blood clots that can cause a fatal heart attack, they’re such fantastic foods for your heart. There’s also evidence that they improve the health of the lining of your arteries too!

If you have space in your garden plant a nut tree then Walnut, Almond, Hazelnut, Cobnut and Sweet Chestnut all have self fertile varieties and grow well in the UK.

To discover British producers using nuts in their products, or offering a range of delicious nutty snacks check out the BigBarn MarketPlace here

BigBarn local food map with Crop for the Shop & Cheaper than Supermarket flags

Or to find producers or retailers local to you visit our local food map or take any of your home grown nuts to sell at local shops marked with a carrot, part of our Crop for the shop scheme.

If you have a favourite nut recipe then why not share? Please video your recipe and add it to our KIS (Keep it Simple) Cookery section. Please have a look at existing videos here and try and keep your video less than 2 minutes long.

A golf ball-sized portion (about 30g) is enough to contribute a mix of valuable vitamins and minerals and are said to boost heart health.