Kelsey Kinney: I had never heard of these before. They seem like this person said, relatively new to the market. I wasn’t at Paleo f(x), unfortunately, so I didn’t get to try them there, but I did take a look at their website, which we’ve posted in the comments. If you guys want to check out the website of that particular company that sells them, which was at Paleo (f)x, you can click on that link and be brought right to their website.
But it looks like, so to me, first I’ll give you my overall general impression, which is that I mean they look good. Nutrition information looks good. Their overall nutrient profile looks really good. I think, in general, they would be a great choice for somebody who’s just looking to expand what kind of nuts they’re eating. I think in that sense they’re a really great option.
As for the question about whether they can be a substitute for macadamia nuts for somebody who has been shown to be positive to macadamia nuts on the Cyrex testing, honestly, I’m not sure. I would have to think since they’re a completely different type of nut that it would be different from macadamias. Even though they taste, apparently I was talking to Kristin prior to getting on this call about them because she was at Paleo (f)x and had tried them. She said that they are kind of similar to macadamia nuts in taste, and the texture’s a little bit softer than macadamia nuts but, in general, pretty similar. So if somebody couldn’t eat macadamia nuts, but they really like them, this could be a great option for them provided that, of course, it’s different enough from macadamias in the sense of the food sensitivity.
My guess would be, yes, that somebody who is sensitive to macadamias on the Cyrex testing would be able to eat these nuts, but it is not something I’m positive about by any means. It’s actually something I would recommend contacting Cyrex about just to get their take on it. But, you know, from my perspective I would think that the protein structures and everything, antigens, are going to be a little bit different, so it would be a completely separate food that if you wanted to know of course for sure if somebody was sensitive to that, Cyrex would have to create a new category essentially for that type of nut.
Of course, they don’t test for everything. It’s certainly possible that somebody could just be sensitive to both macadamias and this type of nut, but if it hasn’t been tested, which at this point it can’t because Cyrex doesn’t’ have anything like that for this type of nut, you would just have to treat it as an unknown. I would give Cyrex a call to see if they think there’s any sort of cross-reactivity that might be going on between the two or anything like that. Because it’s kind of new to the market at least in the U.S., it’s probably going to be hard to know entirely. My suggestion would be to give Cyrex a call and see what they say about that. Because I’m not sure, but in my opinion, I would say it would probably be considered a completely different food in general, so theoretically this person would be able to eat that unless, of course, they happened to also be sensitive to these nuts as well.
I hope that helps to answer your question. In general, yeah, I think these nuts look like they’re a great option. They do have a very low amount of carbohydrate. In fact, if you look under the nutrition label, it’s got 1 g of total carbohydrate, which is actually fiber. So for somebody who, and I think this is why they’ve gone into the kind of Paleo market here, for somebody who’s on maybe like a ketogenic Paleo diet or a very low-carb Paleo diet, these kinds of nuts can be a really great thing because they just don’t have a whole lot of carbohydrates.
That’s sort of an extra benefit if you do have any clients or patients who need to be on a really low-carb diet for any reason. This could be a really good option for a snack for them.