Almonds: what a 30g handful actually gives you
What a 30g handful of almonds contains, which claims a packet may legally make, and what digestibility research suggests.
Snacks
What is actually in the things Britain eats between meals.
Are nuts healthy, or just high in calories?
Nuts are energy dense and still come out well in the research. The plain version of what that evidence can and cannot tell you.
Are peanuts healthy? A legume that behaves like a nut
Peanuts are legumes, yet they sit with tree nuts on protein, fat and fibre, and in the cohort data on heart health.
Are seeds a healthy snack? What the numbers say
Four common seeds compared on fibre, protein and fat, and why whole flaxseed mostly passes through you.
Is snacking bad for you? What the evidence says
The honest answer is that it depends on what and how much, and the meal frequency research is weaker than either side claims.
Pistachios: protein, potassium and the blood pressure claims
Nutrition per 30g, the shell effect on portion size, and a careful reading of the small blood pressure trials.
Roasted chickpeas: fibre numbers and a method that works
The fibre and protein figures for roasted chickpeas, set against crisps, plus why tinned counts and how to get them crisp.
Walnuts: what the evidence says about heart and brain health
Walnuts are the only common nut with meaningful plant omega-3, and the brain research is far weaker than the headlines suggest.
What this section is for
Most snack writing is a list of twenty things with a photograph each. This section does the opposite: fewer foods, looked at properly. What is in them per 30g, what the evidence supports, and what it does not.
Nuts get the most attention here because they are the most studied snack food there is, and because the claims made for them run well ahead of what the research shows. Start with are nuts actually healthy, which covers the whole category, then the individual pages for almonds, walnuts, pistachios and peanuts.
If you want the bigger question rather than a particular food, is snacking bad for you is the honest answer, which is that it depends far more on what than on when.
Everything here is drafted with AI assistance and read by a person before it goes out. How that works, and what gets checked, is set out in how we write.