Almonds can be found in such common places as on top of a salad or as an airplane snack. They are packed with nutritional value and are tasty to eat. Almonds are so versatile that they can be used as a key ingredient in a dessert or as a snack between meals.
Did you know that one ounce of almonds has as much calcium as ΒΌ cup of milk, plus provides 35% of the recommended daily amount of vitamin E? Vitamin E has been shown to help prevent some forms of cancer.
Almonds are also high in folic acid which helps prevent birth defects and have higher levels of magnesium than are found in spinach or oats.
The phosphorus found in almonds helps build strong bones and teeth and some of the other nutrients contained in almonds are protein, fiber, iron, zinc, copper and phytochemicals.
Almonds come with a long and rich history. Almonds are mentioned in the book of Numbers dating to around 1400 B.C. Then, around the year 300 a. C., explorers traveling along the “Silk Road” between Asia and the Mediterranean brought almonds to eat. Consequently, these explorers began cultivating almond trees in new regions such as Morocco, Greece, Israel, Italy, and Spain.
During Roman times, almonds were considered a fertility charm. Perhaps the ancient Romans knew about the nutritional value of almonds and thought they couldn’t hurt fertility. In the mid-18th century, almonds arrived from Spain to California. It took about a century for the almond trees to establish themselves and produce the volumes of almonds we see today.
Then, by the early 1900s, the San Joaquin and Sacramento areas of California were well established as leaders in the almond industry.