Although pecans may not be the first nut you reach for at the store, their nutrition profile and soft buttery texture make them incredibly enticing. They are loaded with nutrients like antioxidants, fiber, protein, unsaturated fat, phytonutrients (plant compounds) and minerals, so there’s plenty of research linking eating nuts to heart health and weight management. And though you’ve probably added pecans to pies or praline, they have many more uses, like a topper for salads or casseroles or a nutty addition to pilafs.
Learn about the benefits of pecans, fun facts about the nut and interesting ways to use them in everyday cooking.
Pecan nutrition facts
One ounce (about 19 halves) of unsalted pecans have:
- 196 calories
- 3 grams protein
- 20 grams fat
- 4 grams carbohydrates
- 3 grams fiber (11% daily value (DV))
- 1.3 milligrams zinc (10% DV)
- 0.3 milligrams copper (35% DV)
- 1.3 milligrams manganese (60% DV)
The health benefits of pecans
Along with other nuts, pecans are known for their “good” unsaturated fat content. Even though pecans taste buttery, they don’t contain more fat than any other nuts. As a matter of fact, they contain the most fiber per serving of any tree nut. Those nutrients, combined with the antioxidants, phytonutrients and minerals, make pecans a winner in the heart disease and weight management category.
One of the first pecan studies on heart health compared 19 men and women with normal blood cholesterol levels who ate ¾ cup of pecans per day or avoided nuts for eight weeks. The participants who consumed pecans experienced a 10% reduction in LDL (bad) cholesterol after 4 weeks and a 6% reduction after 8 weeks. The study authors attribute this change to the unsaturated fat in the nuts.
A more recent study found that a handful of pecans each day (about 1.5 ounces) may improve certain markers of cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, like type 2 diabetes. The researchers gave 25 overweight and obese adults a pecan-rich diet for 4 weeks and observed…
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