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Are Honey Roasted Cashews Healthy?

What do you do when you’re looking for a healthy snack, but craving something sweet? This is a dilemma many of face every day. One of the best ways to satisfy your sweet tooth is by indulging in natural sugars, like what is found in fruit or honey. If you can add these to an already healthy snack, you can get everything you need. Honey roasted cashews are a great example of a healthy snack that offers a sweet flavor to boot. When you learn about the health benefits of cashews, you will see why honey roasted cashews are a nutritious and crave-worthy snack!

About Cashews

Cashews are different from many other types of nuts. For one, they aren’t actually nuts, but the seeds of a tropical fruit called the cashew apple. Before being edible, cashews must be removed from the shell they grow in and heated to cleanse them of toxic substances in their shell. So any cashews you buy to snack on will be shelled and ready to eat!

Additionally, cashews have a taste that is distinct from many other nuts you may be used to snacking on. They’re naturally both sweet and salty, with a creamy or buttery texture that is hard to replicate. Because of this, cashews can often be used as a dairy substitute and are the base of vegan milk, butters, and creams, as well as being a popular component in trail mix.

Nutritional Information About Cashews

Most people generally know that nuts can be good for you and are a healthy snack option. The general nutritional facts on an ounce of plain, raw cashews are below:

  • Calories: 157
  • Carbohydrates: 9.2 grams
  • Protein: 5.1 grams
  • Fat: 12.4 grams
  • Fiber: 1 gram
  • Vitamin E: .3 mg
  • Vitamin K: 9.5 mcg
  • Vitamin B6: .1 mcg
  • Calcium: 10.4 mg
  • Sodium: 3.4 mg
  • Potassium: 187 mg
  • Magnesium: 83 mg
  • Folate: 7 ug

As you can see, cashews are packed with vitamins and minerals! Each of these brings unique benefits to your body. For example, folate can help prevent DNA damage that may cause cancer, and iron helps our blood stay oxygenated. Additionally, potassium boosts the immune system while magnesium improves muscle function. With all of these powerful benefits combined, cashews are a powerhouse snack.

Honey is also full of antioxidants that support better overall health and your body’s disease-fighting ability. Polyphenols, which are powerful antioxidants that are thought to reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer, can be found in honey, in addition to fruits and vegetables. Honey also contains a number of vitamins and minerals, including calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, potassium, and zinc.

Heart Health

One of the largest known benefits of cashews as a snack is their contribution to heart health. While cashews contain fat, they have a much higher level of healthy fats than many other nuts. The unsaturated fats found in cashews help you to absorb vitamins and contribute to muscle health. These fats also help to raise your good cholesterol while lowering your bad cholesterol and blood pressure. This combined with the vitamins, like potassium and folic acid, that fight heart disease make cashews a heart-healthy snack.

While honey contains both sugar and fat, swapping regular sugar out for honey has been shown to improve heart health as well. If you are trying to satisfy a sweet tooth, honey is a great option with fewer consequences for your heart and blood pressure.

Natural Roasted Cashews

Another way to ensure you are eating the best snacks you can is to make sure you are using quality cashews and create the honey glaze at home. This way, you can control exactly what ingredients go into your food. By starting with the organic, vegan, gluten-free, non-GMO cashews from Beyond the Nut, your base is healthy and ready to go. From there, you can mix a simple glaze of honey, maple syrup, and unsalted butter with vanilla extract and cinnamon for flavor. Toss raw cashews in that glaze before putting them in the oven to roast for about 6 minutes and you have a fresh, sustainable, healthy snack. You can also adjust the recipe to fit your dietary needs and your taste better by making your honey roasted cashews at home, starting with Beyond the Nut cashews.