Almond flour is a product used as an ingredient in many pastry recipes. On the other hand, what many people do not know is that the use of almonds is related to an improvement of certain metabolic parameters or even to the optimization of the gastric satiety pulse. Does the resulting flour have the same beneficial effects? Even the defatted one?
The research entitled " Acute and second-meal effects of almond form in impaired glucose tolerant adults: a randomized crossover trial " of 2011 used a research sample composed of various subjects suffering from reduced glucose tolerance, to whom they were given for breakfast : whole almonds, almond butter, defatted almond flour and almond oil; at the same time, none of the aforementioned products was given to another control group, while all of them took a precise dose of carbohydrates. Subsequently, some parameters were evaluated for the whole sample: glycaemia, insulinemia, triglyceridemia of non-esterified free fatty acids, blood peptide-1 glucagon and sensation of appetite. The results showed a reduction in blood sugar with increased satiety (even in the next meal) for those who consumed whole almonds for breakfast; this effect is probably attributable to the lipid component even if, in detail, the response between the whole seed, the butter and the oil presented some noteworthy differences. On the contrary, again from the results, the defatted almond flour (which we remember to be commercial, therefore different from that obtained at home by pulverizing whole or peeled seeds) did NOT lead to any metabolic or appetite improvement.
Ultimately, fresh and fat almond flour can be defined as superimposable to whole seeds, but the same is not true of the defatted flour which seems to have none of the original metabolic qualities.
