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I heard that pecan is healthier than Walnut. One of the reasons is that it has less Omega-6 per 100 grams, and ALA is an inefficient and therefore negligible form of Omega-3 fatty acid.

Pecan is called 美国山核桃 in China, which emphasizes that it is grown from the species in US (美国).

There are some species native in China, whose nuts are also called 山核桃. For example, this product is said to be from Changbai Mountain (长白山).

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  • I was wondering if the Chinese species in Changbai Mountain is a closer relative to pecan than to walnut.

  • I am also wondering if their nuts are similar to pecan in nutrients, and also have less Omega 6 than walnuts.

Thanks.

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  • Common names mean very little. There are multiple things sold as a ‘yam’ that aren’t related. And a ‘sweet potato’ isn’t a potato (or an apple, as the name is ‘dirt apple’ in some languages). Breadfruit contains no bread, ‘peanut’ is not a nut, and actually, neither is a pecan: livescience.com/what-are-nuts.html
    – Joe
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 13:58
  • A bit of Googling and Wikipedia tells me that those are Chinese Hickory nuts, Carya cathayensis
    – Esther
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 16:34
  • Tim, questions specifically about nutritional information are off-limited for SA. Do you want to edit the question and keep it with the nutritional portion removed?
    – FuzzyChef
    Commented Jul 3, 2023 at 20:52
  • @FuzzyChef I thought questions asking about specific, named nutrients are fine?
    – Esther
    Commented Jul 4, 2023 at 0:50

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Based on the Chinese name you gave for those nuts, Wikipedia identifies them as Chinese Hickory nuts, or Carya cathayensis. American pecans are also a species of hickory, Carya illinoinensis, so the two are related.

The only information I could find was for generic "hickory nuts", which seems to refer to the ones you listed, but there are a number of different edible varieties of hickory nuts, so I can't say for sure.

Here is a chart of nutrition information per 100g of nuts:

Type Omega-3 Omega-6
Walnut 9.079 g 38.092 g
Pecan .986 g 20.630 g
Hickory 1.071 g 21.07 g

As one would guess based on the fact that the two nuts are related, pecan and hickory do appear to have a very similar nutritional profile with regards to omega-3 and omega-6 content.

All nutrition facts are from Nutrition Advance.

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