A Man Who Inspires People

One of my favorite pasttimes is the accumulation of quirky and seemingly unrelated and irrelevant information. In that pursuit, I was watching a Youtube video about the harvesting and processing of "Brazil nuts"... most of which are grown and packaged in Bolivia. (but who would buy Bolivia nuts?)

It reminded me that they used to be the last nuts left in the mixed nut bowl around the Christmas holidays, and how I would fight with those hard shells to get at the crunchy buttery kernel inside. I remembered how good they were but that you would get tired getting them out of that very uncooperative shell. The show piqued my memory of Brazil nut deliciousness.

I found a 4 ounce sampler of already shelled Brazil nuts online for .89/oz and saw that the one pound bag was 1.09 an ounce. I think that I am a pretty smart cookie and tried to order 4 of the 4 ounce samplers... the website responded that only 1 four ounce sampler was allowed per address. So, I knew they were going to be good, because they were selling them like crack... you get the first hit cheaper.

Well the mailman brought them just now, and I'm halfway through the sampler. Made myself pull up when the idea crossed my mind that God probably made these ridiculously hard to peel for a reason.
I panicked? I had gone through half the bag. What had I done to myself? So I grabbed the bag and looked at the nutrition label and was reassured at first. "Oh, only 210 calories per bag... so i'm figuring I ate about 100 calories worth of nuts, no problem.

But then I looked closer and noted that the "serving size was only 1 ounce. I had eaten 2 ounces... 420 calories... and mostly saturated fat!

Still panicking and waiting for the signs of an impending heart attack, I went online.... and whew, it's fat is almost all mono-saturated fat, like avocados, the good fat in terms of heart health (but will still add inches to the waistline).

After a little more poking around about Brazil nut nutrition, I discovered that Brazil nuts are the food highest in selenium content, an important nutrient, but I also read, "Brazil nuts contain a very high amount of selenium. Consuming too many could lead to selenium toxicity." Got my attention!

So God had good reason to make them so hard to peel. They are dangerously delicious... and you could OD!

But be that as it may, the crack marketing technique worked because I will be ordering that one pound bag. but I'll only eat 1/2 an ounce or so with my red wine and by my selenium calculations, everything will be all good.

Thanks for indulging my story. I'm hope It has a couple of redeeming reflections.