Can You Eat Too Many Sunflower Seeds

Many people who eat a plant-based diet know sunflower seeds are loaded with good-for-you nutrition, but the question remains, can you eat too many sunflower seeds? What about those baseball players who are spitting hulls throughout nine innings? It's better than bubble gum or tobacco, right?

Sunflower seeds make a healthy snack.

Sunflower sees are an excellent source of nutrients like Vitamin E, and a good source of vitamins B1, B5, B6, and minerals including magnesium, folate, copper, tryptophan, and selenium. They are also a good source of protein. A handful of sunflower seeds makes a quick, easy and nutritious snack that controls hunger. Not only that, but these little morsels are versatile, too. Raw sunflower can be eaten as a crunchy salad addition, sprouted, added to smoothies, baked in bread, used in dressings and even eaten as a chocolate covered treat.

Sunflower seeds have become a popular and healthy substitute for cigarettes, smokeless tobacco and even gum. If you've taken to the nutty flavor and are worried whether or not you can eat too many sun flower seeds, it is possible but difficult to do. The recommended amount of B6 for woman and men over the age of 50 is 1.3 mg. For women under 50 years of age, the RDA is 1.5 (1.9mg if pregnant or breastfeeding) and men under 50 it is 1.7 mg. One ounce of dry roasted sunflower seeds has .23 mg. This clarifies just how hard it will be to get too much B6 by eating sunflower seeds. But can you eat too many sunflower seeds? Yes.

To overdose on B6 by eating sunflower seeds you have to eat more than 2,000 mg of B6 in a day. If you do, it can damage your nervous system. Symptoms include things like:

• Tingling in your feet and neck
• Lack of muscle coordination
• Stumbling

Even ingesting B6 in amounts above 200 mg can cause symptoms like those mentioned above. Remember, the RDA is less than 2 mg no matter who you are.

While the nutrients found in sunflower seeds promote healthy teeth, if you eat large amounts of sunflower seeds still in the hull and crack the shells with your teeth, it can lead to tooth damage.

Another downside to eating large amounts of sunflower seeds is that they are high in calories. If you're not careful, eating these seeds by the handfuls throughout your day can lead to extra, unwanted weight gain. If you stop to realize that one cup of sunflower seeds adds 800 calories to your diet, you can see why weight gain is an easy consequence of overdoing it with sunflower seeds.

Another thing to consider is that even if you stay within your calorie limits, if calories from sunflower seeds make up a big portion of your daily caloric intake, the ratio of nutrients you're taking in will be out of balance. For example, if you are following a 1500 calorie diet and eat a cup of sunflower seeds throughout the day, more than half of your calories and nutrients are coming from sunflower seeds. While the nutrients offered by these |seeds are good for you, when your diet concentrates too much on an one food, your diet will nutritionally lack balance. Eating too much of any one food is not healthy—even if it is a healthy food.

Along with the obvious advantages already mentioned, the tryptophan found in sunflower seeds are also said to have a calming effect on the brain. That's because tryptophan raises the brain's production of serotonin which helps to relax you

One last advantage worth mentioning is that these seeds are a handy snack. Because sunflower seeds are small and lightweight, they are easy to carry in you purse for a power snack that's healthy and gives you energy when you need it.

If you buy sunflower seeds still in the shell it will slow down your eating pattern because it takes work to get to the meat of the seed. If you buy hulled sunflower seeds, they should be stored in the refrigerator because their natural "wrapper" has been removed. Storing them in the refrigerator will keep them fresh for a long time with their precious essential oils unharmed.

Raw sunflower seeds are the healthiest way to get all the nutrition packed inside these seeds. If you want to eat them as a healthy snack, avoid seeds that have been processed in unhealthy ways such as:

• Deep-fried
• Chemically-flavored
• Coated in salt

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