Should I clean my nuts? How?

January 3, 2022 9:43 PM

Today while buying some bulk (pricey!) Brazil nuts, a bunch fell into the mat designed to catch crumbs under the bulk bins. Not wanting to waste food, I scooped them up and purchased the errant nuts but now I’m concerned about how/ if I should clean them of germs before eating them, since they were on a pretty public surface. They’ll be consumed raw. Should I clean my nuts? How?
posted by Pretty Good Talker to Food & Drink (10 answers total)

Best answer: This is likely pretty low risk, especially if you aren't consuming them immediately, but if you want to be certain roast them in the oven until they are delicious, which will certainly kill anything on the surface.
posted by ssg at 10:03 PM on January 3, 2022 [9 favorites]

Nah. I would just eat them. It wouldn’t occur to me to wash nuts. (I’m pretty hygiene-conscious and I also never get sick, for what it’s worth.)
posted by Salamander at 12:42 AM on January 4, 2022 [4 favorites]

My concern would be any chemicals or insecticides sprayed on the mats. I'd treat the mat same as the floor.
posted by jello at 5:26 AM on January 4, 2022

StartPage (Google without the bubble) says you should wash them. The first link said to put them in a bowl of water and stir them up a bit which was my initial thought and also what I generally do with veggies and fruit.
posted by Awfki at 6:12 AM on January 4, 2022

So Awfki, I've been trying to verify that from more official sources, and I'm not finding anything. The water turning brown does not mean that it was dirt on the almonds.

UC Davis' only mention of washing is that you should not wash in the shell. I'm not finding anything from the FDA.

It's totally possible we should all be washing nuts, but I'm wondering why I can't find it in sources I'm more likely to consider reliable.
posted by FencingGal at 6:58 AM on January 4, 2022

I think it's extremely unlikely that the mat contains any more or different germs than your nuts will have encountered earlier on their journey from the tree to the bin.

If you're really worried, roasting's the answer. You could even rinse and then roast.

But again -- think about the picking process and the factory they're processed in. It's far from sterile.
posted by fingersandtoes at 7:28 AM on January 4, 2022 [8 favorites]

Agreed, I doubt the bulk bin the nuts are held in is any cleaner than the mat. Grocery stores do wash both, but only occasionally.
posted by coffeecat at 8:07 AM on January 4, 2022

You can just rinse them. If you don't want to spend the time to let them air dry, you could also put them in the oven on the lowest setting for a few minutes (assuming you don't want them roasted).
posted by trig at 8:08 AM on January 4, 2022

The inside of a produce truck is about as sanitary as the inside of a dumpster. I'd just wash them.
posted by bile and syntax at 11:31 AM on January 4, 2022

Response by poster: Into the oven they will go. Thanks all!
posted by Pretty Good Talker at 2:49 PM on January 4, 2022