sutton023

So far, we're having a "normal Minnesota" winter here.  Which includes this: Yep, that says "21 below" - F, not C.  Oh, and 41 - inside, overnight.  Chances are, in lower elevations on the farm, it was colder than that last night. Our "test winters" are typically at 40 below F; it's been over 10 years since it got that cold.  But this is the second time we've hit 20 below in December, which is a bit unusual; and the coldest part of winter is yet to come.  We'll see.  At the moment, the jet stream is "stuck" with an abnormally deep loop- bringing us air from west central Canada; the "Alberta Clipper."  I'll be surprised if we don't see 30 below; and not surprised if we see 40 below this winter. This does mean we're a bit "hunkered down" here- it takes more firewood, cutting, hauling, stoking - to keep the computers from freezing up.  Slows things down a bit. Meanwhile- best of everything for the New...

This is old news for those of us in the nut business; but nuts are HEALTHY- and that message is being very solidly delivered to the public by study after study. The most recent one comes from two of the most highly respected long term health tracking studies in the world, the "Nurses Health Study" and the "Health Professionals Follow-up Study" - which together track ~119,000 men and women, over some 30 years.  It's in the NEJM  and is also reported on here in plain English, in  The New York Times .  And Carl Albers recently emailed me this article , which refers to the same NEJM study (thanks, Carl!)  And we covered the previous "big new!" article on this topic, from March 2012, right here . Cutting to the chase- the more nuts people eat; the better for them; in every way they can measure; including such things as death from cancer and heart disease. The scientists and doctors are mostly bickering about which causal factors are most important at this  ...