Sometimes information provided in hundred-year-old magazines just leaves me scratching my head. For example, here’s a question I never would have thought of asking – and I have no clue whether the answer is correct.
Are Salted Nuts More Digestible Than Unsalted Ones?
YES! Nuts should never be eaten in any quantity without the addition of salt. The bulk of the protein of the nut is a substance called globulin, which is soluble in salt solution. Therefore, the addition of salt to the nut aids in its solution and digestion. This factor should not be so important in the case of roasted nuts, but even here salt, by making the nuts more palatable, aids in starting off their digestion, which is at best somewhat slow.
Ladies Home Journal (October, 1917)
A Hundred Years Ago 
Unsalted or salted, raw or boiled,peanuts are good. Like you I don’t know if salt helps digest peanuts or not.
Nuts are tasty! 🙂
Ohh is it !!
I agree.
I prefer salted nuts, so I am happy to believe it’s true. 😀
So do I. 🙂
It looks like their intuition was right, although they didn’t have all of the details quite right. Take a look at this article. I found several articles which were all in agreement about how the soaking in a salt solution helps. Note that it’s not at matter of just adding salt to the outside of nuts, as we might after roasting. It’s the soaking in the saline solution that apparently does the trick.
If nothing else, these articles offer an explanation for why eating too many nuts can leave me a little uncomfortable — who knew?
Thanks for finding the article. It’s fascinating. It sounds like people a hundred years ago knew that it was helpful to soak nuts – they just didn’t quite understand the science behind it.
It just seems that we can’t win when it comes to nutrition as it seems to change all the time. I like to eat nuts to keep me feeling full…I’ll hold the salt.
I agree – it’s almost impossible to keep up with all the nutrition advice, so I often ignore it. 🙂
Not sure how accurate it is, but since I love salted nuts, I’ll use it as an excuse from now on! 🙂
Salted nuts are the best. 🙂
Interesting. Like you, I would have never thought to ask.
I hope you’ll post an update if you find out if the 100 year info is still true today.
If I do any additional research on this, I’ll let you know.
Hmm. Food for thought. Raw, unsalted cashews are a food staple for me.
Cashews are yummy. 🙂
Interesting. I think we’ve learned a thing or two in 100 years. Luckily. 🙂 I would say the bad effects of the salt outweigh what good it may have in digestion. Not fact, just my thought.
There are so many things to think about when making food choices.
What an excellent idea to post a controversial article that is a bit nutty! Even better, since there is no right or wrong answer for the present time, we can all make up our own minds to eat nuts with or without salt. Automatic Gardener had it right — nutritional advice seems to change all the time. I’d say find the answer you want, and stick to it.
I love the first line of your comment. It made me smile. You are such a clever writer.
I’m blushing. You find so many interesting things to post!
Fascinating. For health purposes, you are supposed to eat raw almonds, but still limit it to a small handful. The corrosive nature of salt does make me think that it would start to break down the food, but then again salt dries things out…Interesting.
I’m no expert on this, but it’s interesting to think about the role (or nonrole) of salt in digesting nuts.
I have a feeling this might be true. Eating nuts unsalted usually makes my stomach feel funky.
I’ve occasionally had a similar reaction when I ate raw nuts.
Great to know! Thanks for the info. I love me some good nuts 🙂
It’s nice to hear that you enjoyed this post.
We always buy unsalted nuts either from the bulk food section or , much harder to find, on the grocery shelf. I don’t think the article is sound science anymore for now a days.
Scientific knowledge has really advanced across the past century.
I prefer “naked” nuts – more favorable to me. But this is interesting. Since I can’t digest nuts anymore maybe I should try them salted, but then I am at that age where salt makes my ankles and legs swell…..I can’t win can I?! lol
They taste so much better salted, so I think I will just believe it. 😉
Great post!