The walnut in our country is almost more popular than the hazelnut, or hazelnuts, although it is the hazelnut that grows in our area, and the homeland of the walnut is Iran, Central Asia, Afghanistan and the Caucasus.
However, tasty and nutritious kernels, as well as an extraordinary abundance of useful properties, made walnuts a familiar delicacy and a traditional component of many dishes and pastries.
Walnuts are a unique in their value source of vegetable protein, which is absorbed by the human body much better than meat protein. The content of fatty acids in nuts, which are irreplaceable in fat metabolism and are not synthesized by our body, reaches 60%. Walnuts even contain vitamin C, and green fruits contain more of it than rose hips and currants. But there are vitamins A, B1, B2, B6 in nuts, folic and niacin, which are also extremely important for maintaining good health.
The calorie content of walnuts is quite high - 712 kcal per 100 grams. However, you can not be afraid of excess weight due to nuts, because more than 5-6 kernels per day do not need to be consumed. And this is quite enough to improve health. Nuts are especially useful for people weakened after an illness - the consequences of tuberculosis, hepatitis, atherosclerosis will be eliminated much faster when nuts are added to the daily diet. Lack of cobalt and iron salts is also an indication for the consumption of nuts. Nuts with honey will help hypertensive patients, and with increased acidity in the stomach, you can eat from 25 to 100 grams of nuts per day.
However, an unpleasant surprise may await you a few months after purchasing the nuts, when you think about trying them. Dried, moldy, wormy and rotten nuts, among which you cannot find a full-fledged and tasty kernel. The reason for this disappointment is simple: you need to store walnuts correctly, and there are several secrets here.
First, the nuts should be sorted out, peeled from the remnants of the outer shell. In order to guarantee the nuts from being eaten by insect larvae ("worms"), it is recommended to lightly heat them in the oven - the larvae and eggs will die. However, roasted nut kernels can lose a number of beneficial properties.
Peeled kernels have a much worse shelf life than whole nuts. However, they can be stored in the refrigerator, in an airtight container or bag. For storing small quantities of nuts, such as a store bought batch, this is ideal. Long-term storage of whole nuts is possible only with air access - in linen bags or boxes. Otherwise, the nuts "suffocate" and mold. You can store walnuts in such a package in a cool place - in the cellar or on the balcony.
