Persephone wrote:

>On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 02:48:30 -0400, Adam Sroka <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>>Persephone wrote:
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>>
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>>>On Thu, 28 Jul 2005 15:25:07 -0400, Adam Sroka <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
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>>>>Walnuts are mostly n-6. See here:
>>>>http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/tandf/cijf/1999/00000050/00000003/
>>>>
>>>>
>ar
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>>>>
>>>>
>>>t00004
>>>
>>>Dear Adam,
>>>
>>>Quite true, but it is the *ratio* of omega-3's to omega-6's which makes
>>>walnuts such a valuable food in this respect.
>>>
>>>Oily fish is great for EPA and DHA, walnuts are relatively rich in ALA
>>>(all omega-3's, of course).
>>>
>>>I would not want to eliminate omega-6 fatty acids from my diet. It would
>>>be nutritional suicide ;-)
>>>
>>>Thanks for the reference.
>>>
>>>Cheers,
>>>
>>>Persephone
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>I like walnuts myself. I was just trying to point out the inherent
>>contradiction in your statement. You said that you try to limit the n-6.
>>Eating walnuts is not a good way to do this. A serving contains about 14
>>g of fat, about half of which is n-6. Two servings of walnuts would be
>>all the n-6 you need for an entire day. A better choice might be
>>macadamia nuts (More monounsaturates, less poly, and favorable n-6:n-3)
>>
>>
>
>I take it that you mean this statement:
>
>'I keep my omega-6's low and eat plenty of fatty fish and walnuts etc.'
>
>which is pretty ambiguous, so perhaps I should have been more precise.
>What I meant was that I try to keep my omega-6 intake low by comparison to
>that ingested in the typical Western diet. Once again, it is the ratio
>that counts.
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>

Okay. So what you meant by "keep my omega-6's low" was that you keep the
ratio of n-6 to n-3 low, not that you keep n-6 low in the absolute
sense. In general, it's good to keep the total polyunsaturates in your
diet low as well as keeping the n-6:n-3 low. PUFA are corrolated with
immunosupression and higher incidence of certain cancers, and it is not
clear that n-6:n-3 is the only factor (Though it is clearly very
important.) Since we only require about 10 g of n-6 and 3 g of n-3 per
day, it makes sense not to get too many times more than this. This is a
murky topic and it will probably be a few years before we see the whole
picture (More than that if the food industry can continue to supress the
science.) Check these out:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Search&db=PubMed&term=polyunsaturated+fat+immunosuppression&tool=QuerySuggestion

>I adore macadamia nuts but cannot always afford them as they are so very
>expensive in this part of the world. Good fresh walnuts are little less
>dear though hard to find. Imported nuts in general are of poor quality
>where I live, and sadly, barring chestnuts, none grow on our island.
>
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Macadamia nuts are expensive here too. I love them though. I buy
macadamia nut oil at a local health food store and cook with it
occasionally. It costs me $20 US for 500 mL. But, the oil has a very
nice flavor and the fat content is almost identical to olive oil (1 Tbsp
== 14 g total, 2 g sat, 11 g mono, 1 g poly) but with n-6:n-3 close to
walnuts.