The confectionery industry relies on peanuts and tree nuts to add taste, tex-ture and variety to chocolate and sugar con-fectionery products. In a decade, the image of most tree nuts and peanuts has moved from a stodgy, fat-laden product with declin-ing sales to a health food.Nut producers presently enjoy high sales growth as demonstrated by increased demand and market price. Food manufac-turers have increased demand for nut-con-taining products that often command a pre-mium. This change was brought about by a coordinated research and communications program to improve the science behind nut nutrition and the benefits that nuts have on blood lipids and cholesterol. The scientific results are, in part, due to the beneficial nut oils, which contain high amounts of mono-and polyunsaturated fat. But these results do not fully explain the heart-healthy ben-efits of eating nuts. There must be other ben-eficial effects, yet to be described, coming from the fiber, antioxidants or other nutri-ents found in nut meats.
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