A Formerly Forbidden Snack That Takes Down Diabetes

As evidenced by snake charmers and Survivor contestants, the world has all kinds of nuts. And they (meaning the kind you eat) can do far more than satisfy a midafternoon snack attack. Large studies have shown that an ounce of nuts a day decreases the incidence of heart disease by 20% to 60%. And newer research has found that eating a handful of nuts -- or a couple of tablespoons of peanut butter -- five times a week can lower your risk of type 2 diabetes. That's huge, because more than 26 million people have diabetes right now, and the numbers keep going up.

But nuts have their own hierarchy (and we're not talking about who gets voted off the island first). You want them to be raw, fresh, and unsalted. That's because nuts lose up to 15% of their healthy oils when they're roasted (roasting at high temps may also cause the formation of chemicals that promote aging). Here's our pecking order for processing nuts, from best to worst:

• Fresh
• Freshly toasted or dry roasted (in your oven, roast at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 9 minutes)
• Roasted in their own fat and salted (packaged)

We don't eat any sugared nuts or nuts that have been roasted in partially hydrogenated fat or sugared nuts.

To fend off diabetes, you need to keep your waist size and belly fat to a minimum, so if you spread peanut butter on your whole-wheat bagel, have half a bagel instead of a whole one. If you're looking for an afternoon pick-me-up, don't add nuts to your usual munchie; replace it with them. Also key: Do something physically challenging on most days of the week -- and walk every day!