The New York Times ran an article Monday claiming nuts may help prevent diverticulitis. This is another in a growing number of studies claiming health benefits from eating nuts. So the nut is now ascending the list of health foods, even though historically it had taken a couple of shots.
When cholesterol was implicated in heart disease, the early wave of dietary advice was to lower fat intake. And since nuts are high in fat, they came under fire as one of the bad foods- right up there with ice cream and the dreaded scrapple. However, it turns out that lumping nuts with other fatty foods overlooked the fact that nuts have only vegetable fat, which is heart healthy. And nuts are particularly higher in monounsaturated fat, which has been associated as an anti-inflammatory and anti-diabetic nutrient (viz. the Mediterranenan diet).
Another blow to the nutty community was the claim that peanut butter is bad for you. Now it is true that brand name peanut butters have hydrogenated oil added, which has been implicated in heart disease. However, if you walk over a couple of aisles to the natural food aisle, all-natural or organic peanut butter has no offensive oil, and so is as healthy as the nuts themselves (ok, the natural peanut butter doesn't have that same silky smooth mouthfeel, but nuts were made to be crunchy and lumpy in our mouths anyway, eh?).
So it appears that the nut is triumphant, and anyone looking for healthier snacks in their lifestyle would do well to snack on nuts/trail mix/PB. As for eating alot of ice cream and scrapple, well that's just plain nuts.
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