Nuts & seeds
Almond
Thirty grams of almonds carries 7.7 mg of vitamin E — half the 15 mg adult daily requirement. The reason all those calories do not show up on the scale is that the fat is not fully absorbed.
Almonds vs walnuts: vitamin E or omega-3?
Almonds lead on vitamin E, walnuts on omega-3. But walnut omega-3 is plant ALA, which is not the same thing as the EPA and DHA in fish.
Nuts & seeds
Walnut
Walnuts carry 9.1 g of ALA per 100 g, an order of magnitude beyond other nuts. But the rate at which ALA converts to EPA and DHA is very low.
Almond — Leads on
- Protein
- Fiber
- Magnesium
Walnut — Leads on
About equal
Nutrition side by side
Per 100 g edible portion. Only rows where both have a figure are shown, and no winner is marked for items like calories or sugars where more is not better.
| Nutrition | Almond | Walnut |
|---|---|---|
| Calories | 579 kcal | 654 kcal |
| Protein | 21.2 g | 15.2 g |
| Fat | 49.9 g | 65.2 g |
| Carbohydrates | 21.6 g | 13.7 g |
| Fiber | 12.5 g | 6.7 g |
| Magnesium | 270 mg | 158 mg |
Bottom line
Two rows separate these nuts: almonds' 25.6 mg of vitamin E and walnuts' 9.1 g of omega-3. Everything else is close, with small wins going each way.
The vitamin E side is simple. A handful of almonds (30 g) carries 7.7 mg, half the 15 mg adult daily requirement. Outside nuts and vegetable oils, few foods hold much vitamin E, so it is genuinely easy to fall short — and almonds fill that gap more efficiently than anything else here.
The omega-3 side needs one more step. Walnuts' 9.1 g is alpha-linolenic acid (ALA), a different compound from the EPA and DHA in fish. The body does convert ALA to EPA, but at a single-digit percentage, and conversion to DHA is far lower still. So "a handful of walnuts instead of a piece of fish" does not hold. Walnuts are a good way to meet ALA; they are not a substitute for fish.
Both are energy-dense. Walnuts run higher at 654 kcal per 100 g against almonds' 579, though research indicates nuts deliver fewer calories than the label implies, because fat trapped inside cell walls passes through undigested. That is not a reason to eat more of them — a handful is 170 to 200 kcal, and eating from the bag turns into a meal quickly.
There is no need to choose. Half a handful of each gives you the vitamin E and the ALA together. If you must split them: almonds if you rarely use vegetable oils, more walnuts if you are not getting fish twice a week.