Pistachios: Nature’s perfect snack food

We’re just hankerin’ to get out on the open road, and our little excursion down Route 66 this week whet our appetite for snack foods. As promised in an earlier post, we’ll chronicle our food finds while on vacation. In the meantime, check out this little beauty from Everybody’s Nuts.

These pistachios come in a bag inside a fun little box. Kids love them.

Here are some fun facts about pistachios. They are indigenous to Iran, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. They are loaded with phytosterols, which promote cardiovascular health. Pistachios grow in bunches on trees, sort of like grapes on a vine. The word pistachio comes from the Italian pistacchio, which is derived from the Latin pistacium, taken from the Greek pistakion.

We just like to shell them and eat them one after another. Remember the red ones? They would get your fingers red. We used to get those at the baseball game or out of a machine.

They’re perfect for a game or watching TV. OK for vacation too, as long as you’re not at the wheel.