Good news for the Central Valley. Nuts are good for you. Eat lots of them. So says a study out of Spain, and published in the most recent edition of the Annals of Internal Medicine, which studied the effects of a Mediterranean diet on heart disease, diabetes, blood pressure and cholesterol. The results showed that eating the good fats in olive oil and nuts had a much more positive effect on health issues than low fat diets.

So, here's where it gets fun. As if getting to eat lots of olive oil and nuts isn't fun enough. Second highest producing nation of nuts - the United States. And 98% of those nuts come from the Central Valley. (Of course, Lake County, which always seems to be a couple of years out of step, has just ripped up numerous walnut orchards and replaced them with grapevines).

Largest nut producing nation - Iran. Let's hope that's not the next thing we go to war over.

Gillian Parrillo
The Sacramento Executive