There is a wide variety of nuts, which generally contain high levels of protein, oil, and unique flavors. It is widely believed that all kinds of nuts have high nutritional value. However, nut foods also have some easily overlooked hazards. People should learn to identify these problems to avoid health damage.
Jiang Weibo has summarized the main potential hazards of nut foods into the following five aspects: 1. Carcinogenic risk caused by mold.
Many nuts are susceptible to mold contamination. The greatest health risk comes from mold caused by *Aspergillus flavus*. Aflatoxin is a metabolite of *Aspergillus flavus*. The most important and most toxic is Aflatoxin B1, with a median lethal dose of only 0.36 mg/kg of body weight, placing it in the category of extremely toxic substances. Its toxicity is 10 times greater than potassium cyanide and 68 times greater than arsenic. Acute poisoning from aflatoxin mainly damages the liver, inducing hepatitis, cirrhosis, liver necrosis, etc. Clinical manifestations include stomach discomfort, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal distension, and tenderness in the liver area; in severe cases, edema, coma, convulsions, and death can occur. Aflatoxin is the strongest carcinogen discovered to date. Research has found that aflatoxin can induce liver cancer in animals and can also induce stomach, kidney, rectal, and cancers of the breast, ovary, small intestine, and other sites. Aflatoxin contamination is a global problem, including in some developed countries, where the contamination is also quite severe. In our country, the contamination of food is more serious mainly in the southern high-temperature and high-humidity regions.
When buying dried fruits like peanuts yourself, you should pay attention to check for mold problems. On one hand, you can manually pick out the moldy kernels. On the other hand, for people who love to eat dried fruits like peanuts, for processed products, you must carefully check if there are mildew spots on the surface of the kernels. If you suspect contamination, it is best to buy and eat less. This is especially true for nut products mixed and processed with sugar or other ingredients. When buying raw peanuts, they should be washed with water before cooking. Although aflatoxin is not water-soluble, washing with water can also remove most of the toxins adhering to the outside of the kernels.
Once, my family bought a type of amber cashews, the packaging was good, and they tasted delicious. I ate more than ten of them, and soon after, I felt a discomfort in my stomach. I had often eaten cashews before and occasionally similar amber cashew products without any discomfort. But after two repeated tests, I can be sure that this amber cashew was the culprit causing the stomach discomfort. Analyzing from the processing technology, it was really impossible to speculate what connection this food had with the stomach problem. Soaking this amber cashew in water and rinsing it repeatedly. After washing off all the wrapped sugar, the problem was finally discovered. It turned out that this batch of amber cashews contained some moldy kernels mixed in (as shown in the picture).
Some unscrupulous processors use various methods to cover up the deterioration of raw materials, making it impossible for people to identify inferior or spoiled products through color, shape, and taste. Especially for precious types of nuts, processing with inferior raw materials can yield greater profits.
If you buy a pound of peanuts from the market and don't pick them carefully, you might ingest some mycotoxins.
Pick up two handfuls of pistachios, and if you don't distinguish them carefully, you might not notice how big the difference is.
It can be said that this kind of inferior kernel is poison.
Peeling off the skin of a large almond may reveal traces of mold infection. 2. Health hazards caused by rancidity of oils.
Many nuts contain a high amount of unsaturated fatty acids. On one hand, these components have special nutritional value, but they are also prone to oxidative rancidity. This spoilage is easy to identify; most people can find the phenomenon of rancid (stale) kernels by smelling or tasting them carefully, thus making the right choice to eat and avoid harm. 3. Abuse of chemical treatments to prevent spoilage.
Processed nut kernels are prone to fatty acid rancidity during storage, which can cause the product to lose its commercial value. Therefore, manufacturers usually take some measures to control the rancidity and spoilage of nuts. The use of chemical antioxidants is very common, and there are frequent cases of illegal and irregular use of such chemical additives, which poses a potential threat to consumers' health. Some synthetic antioxidants themselves have certain carcinogenic properties. Consumers are hard-pressed to identify the abuse of chemical antioxidants and can only rely on the strict supervision of regulatory departments to ensure consumer safety.
4. Abuse of flavoring and beautifying agents.
Regulatory agencies have found that some sunflower seed producers abuse industrial pigments and industrial paraffin in their production. Many non-edible pigments are highly carcinogenic. Industrial paraffin often contains carcinogenic impurities. Some nuts grow in high-temperature and high-humidity environments, making them prone to mold contamination or other factors that lead to poor appearance quality. Some processors often use bleaching agents, such as sulfur dioxide chemicals, to perform cosmetic treatments on nuts to eliminate spots and discoloration. This often leads to excessive residues of harmful chemicals in the kernels. Especially for split nuts like pistachios, harmful processing agents are more likely to accumulate in the kernels. These cosmetic chemicals are very harmful to human health. Some harmful ingredients can cause adverse reactions in the human body, especially abnormal changes in oral tissues. People who pay close attention to their own reactions can identify these hazards. 5. Allergic hazards.
All kinds of nuts have unique and appealing flavors and generally contain some special proteins. Not everyone can adapt to these proteins. Some sensitive people are more sensitive to rare proteins and are prone to allergic reactions. Currently, the mechanism of peanut allergy is studied more, while the sensitizing components of other nuts are less understood. In addition, bulk nut kernels are prone to breed mites that are invisible to the naked eye during storage. Inhaling and ingesting these mites can cause strong allergic reactions in some people.
Jiang Weibo believes that although all kinds of nuts are rich in nutrition, the risk of unsafe hazards is also very high. In daily life, people should pay attention to distinguishing the quality of nuts and eating them in moderation. Especially for some rare nuts that are rarely eaten, it is necessary to be more careful to avoid harm, and not be unwilling to discard nut foods that have already been identified as poor in quality just because they are precious.