A Stroke at Fifty.
And a Handful of Nuts.

In mid-2025, I had a small stroke. I was obese, my blood pressure was too high, and I had been treating my body like I was still thirty years old — working late into the night, eating too many sweets, too much German bread, not sleeping enough. I had been active since childhood, I chewed my food properly, I stopped eating when I was full. But the years of ignoring the fundamentals had caught up with me.

The wake-up call was severe enough that I had to make real changes. I got professional help and advice, went into Keto, cut sweets by 98%, cut bread almost entirely, restructured my workouts to be more moderate and deliberate, and started sleeping a proper eight hours — in bed by 22:00, up at 08:00. I was determined to avoid medication. The side-effect profiles I read scared me more than the diagnosis itself.

It worked. Over the following months I lost 25 kg. My blood pressure normalised. My overall health markers improved significantly. Nuts and quality oils became a central part of my daily routine — not as a snack, but as a deliberate nutritional tool. Walnuts for omega-3. Brazil nuts for selenium. Almonds for magnesium. Pistachios for blood pressure. The evidence behind each one was solid, and I felt the difference.

I am a developer by trade. When I find a problem I want to solve, I build something. The problem I kept running into was this: every nut app I found was built for people trying to avoid nuts — allergy trackers, not nutrition tools. There was nothing designed for someone who eats nuts intentionally, every day, as part of a health protocol.

So I built NutCase. A free iOS app covering 13 nut types — their key nutrients, health benefits, daily intake guidance, and a smart reminder system. It runs on iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. No subscription, no upsells, no data collection. Just the information you need, built for people who take their nutrition seriously.

Once you start eating nuts seriously, quality becomes everything. The difference between a freshly harvested, properly stored walnut and the stale, oxidised version sitting in a supermarket bag for six months is not subtle. It affects taste, it affects nutrition, and it affects whether you actually stick with it.

I spent a lot of time tracking down quality vendors — organic, raw, bulk, specialty varieties like pili nuts or tiger nuts that simply do not exist in a regular shop. The information was scattered across forums, Reddit threads, and word of mouth. There was no single, reliable place to find it.

NutDirectory is that place. A hand-curated list of over 170 nut and seed vendors across 27 countries, with honest details about what they sell, where they ship, and whether they run affiliate programs. It is a pet project — built for people like me, who take their health seriously and want to know exactly where their food comes from.

Some links on NutDirectory are affiliate links. If you click through and make a purchase, I may earn a small commission — at no extra cost to you. This helps keep the directory free and up to date.

Whether or not a vendor has an affiliate arrangement with me does not affect how they are listed, described, or ranked. I only list vendors I would genuinely consider buying from myself.

You can read the full Affiliate Disclosure and the Privacy Policy for complete details.