Are cashews really nuts?

Botanically they are seeds of the cashew apple, but for culinary and allergy purposes they are treated as tree nuts.

Why are cashews never sold fully raw in shell?

The shell contains urushiol — the same caustic oil as poison ivy. Every cashew sold for eating, including 'raw' ones, has been steamed to deactivate it. Hand-processing the shell is one of the most hazardous tasks in the global nut trade.

How many cashews a day?

Trials use 1 oz (~18 nuts) daily as part of an otherwise Mediterranean pattern — enough to move copper and magnesium status without meaningful weight or lipid downside.

Chapter 1 of 25

Cashew

If You Read Nothing Else

Q: Are cashews bad for cholesterol?

No. Meta-analyses (a study that pools the results of many trials) show cashew intake is at worst lipid-neutral and at best mildly LDL-lowering compared to typical Western snacks it replaces.

The single lowest-fat common tree nut, with a proportionally dense magnesium and copper load. Ayurveda treats kaju as a warming, moistening rasayana for thin, dry, easily-fatigued constitutions.

Randomised trials show cashew intake is at worst lipid-neutral and at best mildly LDL-lowering — no adverse effect on weight at ~1 oz/day.

'Raw' cashews are always steamed; the whole-shell nut carries urushiol and is never safe unprocessed.