Finally some good news---After all of the focus on what one shouldn't eat, here comes a study touting the benefits of eating nuts daily.  The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved more than 118,000 healthy volunteers and found that those who regularly consumed a one-ounce daily serving of walnuts, almonds, cashews or other tree nuts had a 20 percent lower risk of dying from any cause during the three-decade long study compared to those who did not eat nuts.  The take away message is that eating nuts has widespread health benefits. The bad news is that the study was partially funded by the International Tree Nut Council.  This conflict illustrates the trouble with research that is funded by the food industry.  As New York University nutrition professor Marion Nestle stated: “These are excellent investigators but the funding source casts doubt on the credibility of the science. I just don’t think food manufacturers should sponsor research about products they sell. It muddies the water.”  That said, nuts are rich in unsaturated fatty acids, fiber, minerals, vitamins, antioxidants and phytosterols." As a nutritionist, I  can't think of a meal where nuts don't fit in.  They lend themselves to sweet or savory dishes, nut butters are the perfect compliment to whole grain bread at breakfast, they spark up a salad, add delicious protein to a grain dish and are easily portable for a quick pick me up snack. Unless you carry measuring cups to carefully portion them out, nuts can easily add up calorically. One ounce portion sizes are illustrated in the above table courtesy of Environmental Nutrition.