Nice deal on brazil nuts?

[the_legacy]

I ordered 10 pounds of brazil nuts in the shell from Nuts Online and while they're pretty tasty and whatnot, I find it enormously irritating to crack them every time I want some food, not to mention cracking like 20 of 'em to bring in to work. Pretty annoying...

So I e-mailed Nuts Online to ask about the shelling process that they used and particularly if they use heat, and here's the reply I got...

Hi Michael,

The brazil nuts out of shell are cracked by a pressure machine. They are
then quickly in room temperature water to remove any remaining shell. They
are not heated in any way.

Have a great day!

~David

Sounds pretty good to me! What do you guys think?

[RRM]

Its simply impossible to crack them that way and get them out intact.
Its already hard enough focussing on only one nut, and with your human reflexes on alert. With nuts in all sizes and different degrees of 'crackability', its impossible for a machine to crack a bunch and keep them intact.

Personally, I really don't mind cracking nuts while watching TV.

[the_legacy]

Soo.....

Are you implying that they are going to come all smashed to bits and stuff or that he's just flat out lying to me?

[RRM]

That he is lying.
I'm sorry...

[BlueFrog]

And, what about other nuts? I've certainly seen machines for cracking macadamias such as this one Cooper Husker or this one even says it works on brazil nuts http://www.leemfgco.com/nut_crackers.asp.

I don't see why sorting nuts by size would be a problem either. They have machines that sort hundreds of coins by size in seconds, why couldn't the same be done with nuts? In fact, I've seen mention of using screens with adjustable hole sized to sort nuts by size.

[RRM]

Macadamia nuts are far less hard to crack for machines because they are perfectly round.
The shells of Brazil nuts are triangle/roof-like shaped and need to be flash frozen or heated so that they easily fall off.

[Brian]

I've dealt with nutsonline.com a few times before they stopped shipping to Canada.

My impression was that they were always honest and upfront, a quality business.

I personally really doubt they are lying.
I suspect either they are misinformed or there is a new mechanism RRM may not be aware of yet.

Maybe there is a way to know if you ordered a few and tried them? Is there anything distinctive about brazil nuts that have been exposed to heat?

[RRM]

Yes, you may be right Brian.
But no, I wouldn't know how to tell the difference.
But, maybe we could judge ourselves whether the applied cracking method might be sophisticated enough to harvest intact nuts.
If such machines are there, they must be sold, and if so, they must have a sales website, right?

[Brian]

I equally consider that they could be misinformed, as there really could be such a device.

There are not always websites for heavy industrial tools, or at least I wouldn't expect there to be...

The other thing to do is to ask them for more details about this machine, because you have to be very careful selecting nuts (make something up, like that heat causes them to have something that you're allergic to).

On the other hand, I think pre-cracked nuts would have a reduced shelf life too, so probably a downside to this if it were true.

[RRM]

I think pre-cracked nuts would have a reduced shelf life too, so probably a downside to this if it were true.

Very much true; the shell protects them from getting infected by moulds that produce (afla)toxins. If they come without the shell, one infected nut may have infected them all.
Aflatoxins are very bad for you.
When they are still in the shell, an infected nut will probably already have desintegrated. And if not, its only one nut, and the nut also contains elagine, which helps to fight aflatoxins.
With nuts are out of the shell, the bad ones are simply picked out, while the rest remains (affected), and all those infected nuts combined will burden you with an overload of aflatoxins.

[coltrane]

did anyone ever find out anything definitive about this issue?.....to be honest, I too am just plain lazy when it comes to dealing with the shelling of nuts and it really gets in the way of my consumption of them.....if I had nuts that were already shelled, I think I would eat way more nuts than I do now....did anyone find out if there's a "safe" way or place to consume pre-shelled Brazil or Macadamia nuts?.....

[RRM]

Im sorry, I should be researching this
(eventually I will) but I have so little time. Maybe anyone else has the time?

[muirgheal]

I wrote to 'Terrasana'- an organic brand sold in most dutch healthfoodstores- to ask them about their shelled macademia's. They sent me a PDF describing all the steps in the process- from harvesting, dehusking, transport, crackout, -to packaging- including pic's. Temperature during the whole process is never above 38 degrees celsius.

[Oscar]

Interesting. How do they crack the nuts?

[muirgheal]

"CRACKOUT
All processing and crack out equipment is thoroughly washed down ready for organic processing and production in a dedicated macadamia processing line. Shell removed from kernel by mechanised crackers. Product is mechanically separated into sizes and shell removed. Kernel is machine colour sorted then hand graded to Serendip Plantation’s specification, which can vary according to customer requirements. Macadamia kernel is maintained below 38° Celsius throughout processing."