Antioxidant rich pecans are part of a healthy diet Posted On: Sunday, Nov. 15 2009 05:49 AM By Dirk Aaron
Bell County Extension Agent

Pecans have been an important food for man and wild animals in Texas for thousands of years. Prehistoric Indians depended on native pecans as food. Deer, turkey, squirrels, raccoons, crows and many other animals feed heavily on pecans today as they have in the past. Pecan production as a commercial operation first started as simply gathering native nuts and selling them to the highest bidder. As early as 1840, native pecans were shipped to Europe for sale. Today the pecan can be managed as a native grove, a planted orchard of improved varieties, or as a landscape tree. Texas averages 60 million pounds of pecans annually, equally divided between natives and improved varieties from planted orchards.

The first known cultivated pecan tree plantings are thought to have taken place in the late 1600s or early 1700s in northern Mexico, whereas the first U.S. plantings took place in Long Island, N.Y., in 1772. By the 1800s, pecans were at the heart of a full-fledged North American industry.

Pecans have a rich history that goes back hundreds of years, but recent history is redefining how people think about those delicious little tree nuts. Research conducted over the past decade has confirmed that pecans can be a healthy addition to the diet.

New research, published in the August 2006 issue of Nutrition Research, shows that adding just a handful of pecans to your diet each day may help inhibit unwanted oxidation of blood lipids, thus helping prevent coronary heart disease. The researchers suggest that this positive effect was in part due to the pecans' significant content of vitamin E – a natural antioxidant.

Pecans also play a role in lowering cholesterol. Clinical research published in the Journal of Nutrition (September 2001) compared the Step I diet (28 percent fat), recommended by the American Heart Association for individuals with high cholesterol levels, to a pecan-enriched (40 percent fat) diet. The results showed the pecan-enriched diet lowered total cholesterol by 11.3 percent and LDL "bad" cholesterol levels by 16.5 percent – twice that of the Step I diet, without any associated weight gain.

Research conducted by Dr. Ronald Eitenmiller at the University of Georgia has also confirmed that pecans contain plant sterols, which are known for their cholesterol-lowering ability.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has acknowledged this and related research and approved the following qualified health claim: "Scientific evidence suggests, but does not prove, that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts, such as pecans, as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol, may reduce the risk of heart disease."