Dietitians recommend a handful of nuts (around 30g) every day, to gain protective health benefits.

Nuts are a key food within healthy dietary patterns. And decades of research links these naturally-nutritious, whole foods with major health advantages . . . if we eat them!

But there’s the problem.

Most Australians are missing out on the health benefits of eating a daily handful of nuts. Just two per cent of us met the target nut intake of 30g a day.

The Australian Dietary Guidelines (2013) are currently under review. A greater prominence for nuts within the next Guidelines would help improve intake.

Target nut intake: How do we fare?

An analysis of Australian Health Survey (AHS) data found that, on average, Australians ate just 4.6g of nuts a day, and around 60 per cent of those surveyed reported not eating any nuts at all (1).

To reap the proven health benefits of nuts, Australians need to drastically increase their nut intake. For most, this would mean eating six times as many nuts as they currently do!

Why eat a handful of nuts every day?

Data from the AHS analysis showed that Australians who ate nuts regularly had higher intakes of key nutrients including fibre, iron, phosphorous, magnesium and vitamin E (1).

Research (2,3) has found that a handful of nuts most days of the week is associated with a:

• 29% reduced risk of heart disease
• 22% reduced risk of mortality
• 21% reduced risk of cardiovascular disease
• 15% reduced risk of cancer
• 15% reduced risk of death from all causes
• 13% reduced risk of type 2 diabetes
• 7% reduced risk of stroke.

And eating nuts is linked with a reduced risk of overweight and obesity, and a reduced body weight, body mass index and waist circumference (4-6).