The Center for Unhindered Living

Walnuts - Antioxidant Content
Walnuts contain 10 different antioxidants. The quality of these antioxidants is very high.  Walnuts also contain a significant amount of Melatonin.  Eating as few as 7 walnuts a day can significantly impact one's overall health, and especially heart health.  An extract from the walnut leaf has also been found to retard food spoilage as well as many chemical preservatives like BHT.   Although walnuts are also high in fat, which is why many people probably don't eat them, it's healthy fat, and it actually helps you feel full and can help you keep from overeating.  However, while studies show that ingesting walnuts did NOT increase serum plasma levels of antioxidants, it did ncrease levels of linoleic acid and pyridoxine with regular consumption.  So although Walnuts are high in antioxidants, for some reason this does not affect the serum levels once ingested.  This doesn't mean you shouldn't bother to eat them, they have a lot of other health benefits.  I would choose to use them as part of an overall diet high in antioxidant foods.  My personal first choice would be pecans.  And make sure you don't roast them.  Heating them greatly reduces the levels of healthy antioxidants, vitamins, minerals and enzymes in the nuts.

These values can be found in the document "Oxygen Radical Absorbance Capacity of Selected Foods - 2007" USDA





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