Almonds

[Guest guest]

I love to sprout almonds. After about 8 to 24 hours of soaking, the almonds

swell and have a slight bulge at the end. They are very moist and sweet.

We can still get raw almonds, but I don't know how long this will continue.

The Almond Board of California, which oversees virtually 100 percent of the

almonds grown and consumed in the United States and Canada, is now

implementing plans to pasteurize all almonds at temperatures up to 158

degrees (F).

Read the article reprinted below. Mike should be read with a grain of

salt, but I think he's right on about this. Do the action item at the bottom

of the page. And please pass this information on to all your friends and

organizations that enjoy raw foods and sprouting.

Grace

-----------------------------------

http://www.newstarget.com/021776.html

NewsTarget.com printable article

Originally published April 5 2007

Food Scam: Almond Board of California to falsely label pasteurized almonds

as " raw "

by Mike

The Almond Board of California, which oversees virtually 100 percent of the

almonds grown and consumed in the United States and Canada, is now

implementing plans to pasteurize all almonds at temperatures up to 158

degrees (F) and yet have them intentionally and falsely labeled as " raw. "

The decision was made following the 2001 and 2004 outbreaks of salmonella in

almonds, and is based on the intention of the Almond Board of California to

provide a " safe, nutritious product to consumers " but not, it seems, an

accurately labeled food product to consumers.

Although it seems unthinkable to anyone familiar with the fundamentals of

nutrition, the Almond Board fails to recognize any distinction between raw

almonds and cooked almonds. In statements received by NewsTarget, the Almond

Board explained that, " raw almonds that have been pasteurized do not differ

in any significant way from untreated raw almonds. "

Except, of course, for the fact that they are dead. Stating that live, raw

almonds are the same as dead, cooked almonds is equivalent to stating that a

living human being is the same as a corpse.

Raw foods are widely understood by virtually the entire food community to

mean food items kept below 108 degrees (F), beyond which the living enzymes

in foods are destroyed. Pasteurization, in contrast, exposes foods to

temperatures of up to 158 degrees for durations up to 30 minutes. (Faster

" flash " pasteurization can involve much higher temperatures for shorter

durations: 280 degrees (F) for two seconds, for example.) NewsTarget does

not know the precise temperature that will be used for pasteurizing almonds,

but it will without question be a temperature higher than 108 degrees (F),

which means the almonds can no longer be considered raw by any reasonable

person familiar with the definition of raw.

Outcry from the raw foods community

The raw foods community, not surprisingly, is alarmed at the new rules,

which openly condone the false labeling of a food product. Dr.

Cousens, author of several top-selling books on raw foods and founder of the

Tree of Life Rejuvenation Center in Arizona (www.TreeofLife.nu), told

NewsTarget, " This mandatory almond pasteurization is an effort by the powers

that be to limit access to healthy food. It is a serious attack on people's

ability to eat what they want and support their health. In this important

way, it deprives us of our basic rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of

happiness. It is a serious incursion of rights for a trivial and preventable

reason, this being that the [past] contamination of the almonds was from a

single source. "

The issue at hand here is not merely that all California almonds will now be

sterilized, but that cooked almonds will be deliberately and falsely labeled

as raw. It's like opening a carton of fresh eggs and finding out they've

already been hard-boiled. This is a clear case of deceptive labeling that

should, by any common sense definition, be illegal. Yet the FDA seems

perfectly happy with this deception and will apparently allow consumers to

be blatantly misled about the food products they are purchasing.

Raw doesn't mean raw

The Almond Board of California (ABC) is aware of the outcry concerning the

new pasteurization rule, but believes that the outcry is without merit. " The

almond board understands there is an outcry, but we maintain that the

quality of the almond is substantially the same as it is raw, " said Marcha

Venable of the ABC.

With this decision, the Almond Board of California seems surprisingly out of

touch with the California lifestyle, which is significantly based on fresh,

raw food products like limes, avocados and almonds. The living foods / raw

foods movement in the United States is largely a product of the natural

California lifestyle, and yet the Almond Board seems to have no hesitation

in intentionally mislabeling its cooked almond products as raw, misleading

consumers into thinking they're buying live almonds when they aren't.

This isn't something that's being covertly pursued, either. The Almond Board

is blatantly and openly stating that cooked almonds will be labeled as

" raw. " If all these almond deceptions seem a bit hard to swallow, check the

definition of " raw " in the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, which states

that " raw " means:

1. uncooked, as articles of food: a raw carrot.

2. not having undergone processes of preparing, dressing, finishing,

refining, or manufacture: raw cotton.

In direct contradiction to this clear definition, the Almond Board of

California is now insisting that cooked = raw.

Think about that for a minute. Cooked is raw.

War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is power. (1984 by

Orwell)

And now, in the California almond industry, cooked is raw.

Apparently, the perception of what's in the bag is far more important than

what's really in the bag. Ignorance is power, after all.

How the almonds will be cooked

Pasteurization is a heat process that kills microorganisms by exposing them

to high temperatures. Unfortunately, the process also kills the enzymes and

living qualities of the food in question. Raw nuts and seeds can be planted

and will actually sprout, indicating they are alive and vibrant, but cooked

nuts and seeds will not sprout, indicating they are dead and have no

remaining life force.

Pasteurization is effective at eliminating microorganisms precisely because

it kills things. But heat is not a selective killer. It kills the almond

just as easily as it kills the microorganisms. Thus, any sterilized almond

package will contain dead almonds.

There are other technologies that can kill microorganisms without requiring

pasteurization. Ozone treatment, for example, is extremely effective at

reducing microorganisms and yet requires no high temperatures. Ozone-treated

almonds could still be truly raw, but the Almond Board is not actively

pursuing large-scale ozone treatments, perhaps due to the cost

(pasteurization is cheap and easy, where ozone treatments require

investments in expensive equipment).

It's not just the almonds that are going to be cooked under the new plans,

however. The reputation of the Almond Board of California is also being

sterilized. Who can trust an organization that openly and blatantly

announces its intention to mislabel cooked almonds as raw almonds? If the

almonds were honestly labeled as " pasteurized " or " sterilized, " then that

would be at least be a defensible position. But to intentionally and

deliberately propose that a food product be deceptively labeled is

inexcusable in any industry, including the almond industry.

Not enough public comments

The Almond Board of California says the new pasteurization rule is no

secret, and it was published in a federal registry that welcomed comments

from the public. The commentary period ended in January. " They did not

receive enough comments to warrant a review, " Marcha Venable told

NewsTarget, " So it's really the overwhelming cry of consumers across the

nation for healthy food products. "

NewsTarget finds that quote perplexing. A lack of response is not equivalent

to, " an overwhelming cry. " Silence is not a mandate. Perhaps the people were

simply too astonished to speak.

With this new false labeling rule, the almond industry joins the dairy

industry in the " kill your food " philosophical camp. Dairy products are

pasteurized for the same reason (to kill microorganisms and extend shelf

life), yet raw dairy products have been found to exhibit tremendous health

and nutritional advantages over cooked, processed dairy products.

By cooking its almonds, the Almond Board of California will be unwittingly

killing its product and delivering an inferior almond to consumers. Raw

foods enthusiasts wishing to make their own raw almond milk will now be

without easy options. Ultimately, it seems that the Almond Board of

California is not merely killing the almonds; it's also killing its

reputation. The harm to the almond industry from increasing awareness about

the false labeling could reach into the tens of millions of dollars in a

single year.

No exceptions

Contrary to popular belief, there are no practical exceptions to the

pasteurization rule, at least not for consumers. Certain organizations can

be granted " Direct Verifiable " exceptions (DV), but only if they later

pasteurize the almonds as part of a manufactured food product such as a

granola bar. Thus, all almonds grown in California will, by law, have to be

killed.

NewsTarget is currently attempting to find a source of truly raw almonds

that we can recommend to consumers. Any organic almond growers who wish to

be part of our recommended list of honest, raw almond sources are free to

contact us through our feedback page. Once we are able to locate reputable

sources of raw almonds, we will make that list available to NewsTarget

readers.

The double standard

Interestingly, meat products are not required to be cooked before being

sold, despite the numerous outbreaks of e.coli in meat that are announced

each year. Why aren't hamburgers outlawed or raw meat products banned?

It is also interesting that there is absolutely no effort by state or

federal regulators to remove the additives and ingredients in foods that

kill consumers through cancer, heart disease, diabetes and liver disorders.

Sodium nitrite, for example, remains perfectly legal to add to processed

meat products, even though it substantially increases the risk of pancreatic

cancer, colon cancer and even breast cancer. Hydrogenated oils, aspartame,

petroleum-derived food coloring chemicals and cancer-causing preservative

chemicals all remain legal as well.

Clearly, the goal of so-called " food safety " initiatives have nothing to do

with actually protecting consumers, but a whole lot to do with meeting the

interests of agricultural companies and junk food manufacturers. The primary

concern of food safety officials appears to be extending shelf life, not

protecting consumer health, which is why most of the food safety rules in

effect today -- and even new ones like this almond pasteurization rule --

primarily have the effect of extending food shelf life.

With this recent decision, the Almond Board of California has unwittingly

joined the conglomeration of uncaring, ignorant agricultural corporate

interests who have no real concern for consumers, although they disguise

their actions as such. Before long, it seems, all the food sold in the

United States will be genetically modified, irradiated, pasteurized,

homogenized, hydrolyzed and packaged for a two-year shelf life. And it will

all be labeled as " All natural! "

It's no wonder, then that the United States population demonstrates the

lowest levels of mental and physical health of any advanced nation. We are

the walking dead, largely because we eat predominantly dead foods.

Ignorance beyond belief

The Almond Board of California is now joining the " dead food society " and

contributing to this problem, apparently out of astonishing ignorance of the

difference between live foods vs. dead foods. Perhaps someone should explain

to the almond board what seeds are, and demonstrate the planting of a seed

and its miraculous creation of a young plant.

It seems beyond belief that the organization overseeing tens of millions of

dollars in almond production each year would have no apparent familiarity

with the living foods benefits of their own products. It would be like an

airplane manufacturer having no familiarity with the physics of flight, or a

search engine company that had no idea what the internet was. Perhaps the

Almond Board members have pasteurized their own heads and now have no

working brain matter remaining to put to a sensible use.

It almost seems silly to have to say this, but there is a difference between

life and death. The character of an almond is no more defined by its

material matter than the character of a person is defined by the mineral ash

of their cremated body. What's contained in a raw nut, seed, root or plant

goes beyond mere chemistry, beyond the minerals, vitamins, oils and fiber. A

raw nut exhibits a living energy that is qualitatively unique and cannot be

replaced by a dead nut. This is obvious to virtually everyone familiar with

the fundamentals of nutrition, but it has apparently escaped the notice of

the ABC, whose only business is almonds!

The new false labeling rule goes into effect in the Fall of 2007. Until

then, enjoy your raw, healthy almonds, because unless you have your own

almond tree, they may soon be a thing of the past.

Action item

If you're a consumer of almonds anywhere in North America, your supply of

raw almonds is now at risk. Contact the Almond Board of California and let

them know what you think:

http://www.almondboard.com/utilities/FORMContactUs.cfm

Their phone number is (209) 549-8262

>

> New to sprouting, and being anemic and osteoporotic, I wanted to

> soak/sprout some almonds to improve digestibility of the calcium and

> iron.

>

> I was gong to by some from a grocery store but they were labelled

> California almonds. California has decided to kill their almonds prior

> to sale and even though they will be labelled 'raw' they will be dead.

>

> Does anyone know of a source of live almonds? Sometimes I wish I lived

> in a climate where I could grow more of my own food and save my

> own 'seeds'. Being at the mercy of others for my food really sucks.

>

> -Lee

>