HomeAccess to Good FoodThe USDA ban on raw almonds is a food freedom issue, not a food safety issue!

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The USDA ban on raw almonds is a food freedom issue, not a food safety issue! — 22 Comments

  1. Fundamentally, this is an issue of money as is everything else in this plutocracy. You can bet some corporation is profiting from the banning of raw almonds and it’s likely the producers of the canned almond products. I may be wrong but rarely does anything occur in this country pertaining to consumer issues, not a way to restrict one entity so that another entity(s) can grab more money by eliminating competition. This is the way of America today. We are a corrupt corporate run country. As long as lobbyists are allowed to give away huge amounts of money to pay off those lawmakers (FDA) who make these decisions, this will continue across the board with everything we consume, purchase or otherwise pay money for. Corporate American has a “More money is better” attitude, regardless of what the topic of conversation is about.

  2. overhaul the USDA, the FDA, the DEA, The CDC, etc etc etc… tired as can be of crap education, crap food, crap bully bureaucrats.

  3. This makes me so mad!! How dare they (FDA) hide anything from us!! We should have the choice to eat something or not based on our own personal guidelines. I don’t like being kept in the dark on ingredients or how something is processed. It should be mandatory for all labels to be correct and true, no matter how good or bad it is.

  4. This is another infuriating example of how how we are being duped. I wrote about this topic a couple of months ago here: http://www.chicshadesofgreen.com/al-most-raw-almonds-the-deception-of-the-almond-industry/

    I was happy to find some real raw almonds in the bulk section of my health food store. They’re Sicilian and they say right on the label “unpasteurized”, so I bought a whole bunch.

    It’s absolutely ridiculous how US almonds can be exported and Italian almonds can be imported unpasteurized. Let us just buy raw foods as we want to. And of course, the farmers are losing money in this, it’s the processors that are raking in the profits because they own the machinery.

  5. And they call the US, the land of the free. This is not freedom of choice. and yes, I agree it is all about greed. They are all getting FAT wallets, and we get POISONED &/or DEAD food. I am shamed of what this country has become.The land of the corrupt and greedy. I am understanding more of why many in other countries hate the U.S.

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  11. I understood the spirit of the ban differently. Agribusiness may be at odds with Food Freedom; I don’t dispute that. Raw bitter almonds contain ridiculously high levels of cyanide, however.

    Whole Foods recalled a bunch of almonds not long ago because they had potentially lethal cyanide levels. Since cyanide ions cause cell death by inhibiting the enzyme required by cells to use oxygen, the risks associated with consuming it are pretty important.

    I agree that it’s unsettling for the government to tell us what we can and can’t eat, but I also don’t see that happening here at all. Sure, they’re making it harder to get unheated, unprocessed bitter almonds, but technically no one said you don’t have the freedom to grow them and eat them if we want.

    Rather than fighting the government on labeling/processing requirements, I’d love to see more people push for fewer working hours for more people, so there is ample time to grow some of one’s own food. Then again, even if Uncle Sam doesn’t interfere, your neighbors probably won’t be sympathetic to your planting of cyanide-laden almonds in your yard if they have children or pets 🙂 Also, doesn’t it take a long time to grow an almond tree? I admit, the options for obtaining totally raw almonds are very limited if they’re banned in stores. Still, are you sure you want them??

    In this particular instance, I believe the government could simply be applying common sense to protect its people.

    Interesting points, thanks for sharing. I enjoyed reading your thoughts.

    • I neglected to say that if your claims that the government now has significant additional power to mandate how entire food groups unrelated to almonds are processed compared with before the Almond Rule,. then I wholeheartedly share your concern re: potential for abuse of that power.

      • According to the Alliance for Natural Health, “The Almond Rule isn’t just about almonds. The rule actually expands the USDA’s powers, allowing the agency to mandate how dairy, fruit, vegetables, nuts, and animals are processed—something they have never been able to do. The USDA is legally allowed to establish minimum standards for farm products based on grade, size, or quality; they can say, for example, that ‘Almonds must be free of salmonella.’ But the Almond Rule changed all that, allowing USDA to claim it can mandate how that outcome is achieved (e.g., “Almonds must be made salmonella-free via one of the following pasteurization processes…”).” (source) It does seem that the ruling has vastly expanded the powers of the USDA to regulate not only the condition of foods but also the exact process required to achieve that condition.

    • Although bitter almonds may contain potentially harmful amounts of cyanide, all U.S. commercially grown almonds are of the “sweet” variety. (source) Some imported almonds may contain cyanide; however, the USDA ban on raw almonds does not apply to imported almonds. The ban, as mentioned above, is related to an outbreak of salmonella not to the cyanide content of the almonds. (source) Also, when the ban was proposed, “During the rule-making process, the USDA merely regurgitated the findings of the Almond Board, a biased and financially motivated stakeholder. The rule-making process is supposed to be conducted by an unbiased decision-maker without any financial interests, but six out of the ten seats on the Almond Board are controlled by Blue Diamond, an enormous almond producer. The interests of small, organic almond farmers weren’t even considered.” (source) The banning of raw almonds is clearly a food rights issue or imported raw almonds would also have been banned.

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  17. I use to be able to by raw hazelnuts in the shell from someone who said he did not hurt the squirrels. Now I think the FDA has banned raw hazelnuts and I can no longer get raw hazelnuts in the shell from him. I think there are few nut growers that do not consider squirrels to be the enemy. I think raw nut in the shell are best for the squirrels if you feed them. Today probably most nut growers plant their nut trees, but in the wild Squirrels do a lot of the planting. If you feed squirrels raw nut they may plant some trees for you. We are losing forest and people depend on forest to live. Squirrels do other thing that help forest. A healthy forest has Squirrels.

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