America's love affair with pecans goes way back. In fact, back to a time before there even was an America. According to the National Pecan Shellers Association ( http://www.ilovepecans.com ), there's a lot more to pecans than pecan pie. For instance, pecan is actually an Algonquin American Indian word that translates as "all nuts requiring a stone to crack." Because the nuts grew wild, pecans became a staple food for certain American Indian tribes.

Spanish colonists were among the first to cultivate pecan trees in northern Mexico. The first trees cultivated in the U.S. were in Long Island, N.Y., in 1772.

Recent work by respected scientists suggests that a high rate of monounsaturates to polyunsaturates/saturates may be the most helpful way of reducing the risk of heart disease. Monounsaturates appear to lower LDL (bad) cholesterol levels without changing HDL (good) cholesterol levels in the blood, while polyunsaturates tend to lower both. Oleic acid is the primary monounsaturated acid found in most nut oils. Pecans have been found to lower LDL cholesterol in people with normal lipid levels. (J. Am. Diet. Assoc. 2000; 100:312-318.)

Here are some fun facts about pecans:

• Stacked end to end, it would take 11,624 pecans to reach the top of New York's Empire State Building. If you wanted to reach the moon, you'd need 10 billion pecans.
• There are more than 1,000 varieties of pecans.
• Pecan shellers process more than 150,000 pounds of pecans each day.
• The U.S. produces more than 80% of the world's pecan crop, or 324 million pounds a year.
• Then there's the other little-known fact about pecans. If you really want to put a little zing, or more accurately zinc, in your love life, eat pecans! The National Pecan Shellers Association reports that pecans naturally provide the body with zinc, which helps the body produce testosterone, the hormone that perks sexual desire in men and women. That's something to think about the next time you see pecan pie on the menu!

For more information about the Pecan Breeding Program, contact Dr. Patrick Conner

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