During April try adding nuts and dried fruits into your diet on a daily basis and let us know how you feel! In this article, we will share with you some key moments to eat nuts and dried fruits, and share what health benefits they can bring to your life. If you’re looking to know more about these facts, keep reading!

When is the perfect time to eat nuts and dried fruits?

Obviously, we’re biased and think that any time is a good time to add nuts and dried fruits into your diet, but, these delicious treats are great to add to your breakfast or as a mid-morning or afternoon snack. These are the times our body needs energy, to start the day and then to help us get to our main meals without incurring energy drops, which can lead us to reach for those sugary snacks.

Nuts and dried fruit are little nutrient power-houses and therefore adding them to your breakfast can provide you with a nutrient boost before you even start the day. They are also very versatile and therefore, can be used for both sweet or savoury recipes and can be used as an integral part of a recipe, such as in smoothies (here are some delicious nut smoothies), or as breakfast topper. You can even use nut butters or spreads to give your toast a delicious twist, just make sure it is natural and with no added sugars (check out our hazelnut chocolate spread) .

Mid-morning or afternoon can also be a time when energy levels can start to drop, and you need a boost to keep you going and get back into the groove. Nuts and dried fruits may provide you with just that. Many nuts contain a blend of protein, fats, and some carbohydrates to provide energy throughout the day and dried fruits are a good source of fibre making them perfect snacks to munch on in between meals.

Nuts and dried fruits to add in to your day-to-day diet.

All nuts and dried fruits are delicious and each and every one contributes as part of a healthy diet. Below are some quick ideas of how to add them to your meal plan and what they can do for you.

• Adding dates to your salad will not only give it a sweet taste but as dates are high in fibre mixing them in with your salad may also help prevent constipation and help your overall digestive health.
• Eating almonds during work or school break will help boost those energy levels to keep your mind sharp for the day. They are also a very easy snack to take with you on the go, remember 23 makes up a healthy handful.
• Dried Figs are remarkable for their phenolic content, a type of antioxidant. Antioxidants help protect our cells against damage which in turn may help prevent some diseases. Dried figs are a great ingredient to sweeten up a dish as you will see in our recipe below.
• Raisins can be great as a topping to sweeten up your oatmeal. Raisins are high in potassium, which contributes to the maintenance of normal blood pressure, helpful if you’re about to have a stressful day ahead.
• Walnuts can add a lovely bit of flavour into your snack. Walnuts have many health benefits and eating the recommended daily allowance of 30 g (14 walnut halves) every day contributes to the improvement of the elasticity of blood vessels which helps blood flow.

Healthy recipes with nuts & dried fruits

Live it up and make this delicious walnut, pecan & dried fig banana bread! It’s easy to make and great for breakfast to give you a nutritional boost to start the day.

This recipe is a great way to use up overripe bananas, it’s bursting with sweet banana, cinnamon, dried figs and walnuts. This will last a few days and is even better toasted, and spread with a layer of peanut butter!

Nut and dried fruit trail mix anyone? Roasted nuts and dried fruits, tumbled with spices.

Roasted nuts and dried fruits, tumbled with spices. The key to this recipe is toasting the nuts well, to really bring out the rich, nutty flavours. You can do this in a dry pan over a medium heat, or in a pre-heated oven like we have. All the nuts are unroasted and unsalted.

Hopefully, this article has given you some tips and inspiration to add nuts and dried fruits into your life on a daily basis.

For more ideas go over to our healthy recipes or follow us on Instagram or TikTok.