Does anyone know where to get some really really raw cashew butter? I'm 100% raw and a purist, really strict, even to the point of suspecting various processed raw food isn't raw.

Sun Foods has the cashews that I trust are raw, but they don't make a cashew butter. Other companies make a raw cashew butter, but I feel like they aren't using really raw cashews.

Has anyone ever made their own butter with just the cashews? I don't eat salt or oil, so it would be just blending up the cashews - I don't want to waste a bunch of expensive cashews and end up with powder.

Try it in your Cuisinart rather than your blender using the Susan Powers method. [www.rawmazing.com]. In order to produce a quality nut butter, there needs to be enough oil when liberated you see a shine on spread similar to Susan's last picture. I don't know about cashews. Works for almonds and walnuts. But you are always better making your own. Kohler recommends adding a little oil for the drier nuts. I will leave that decision to you. I won't add oil to my nut butter. If it doesn't have enough, I just pick a different nut that will. experiment. Let us know what happens.

Paul

Glaser Farms has truly raw cashews, they are called hand shelled. I am sure they do nut butters too but I think you have to ask them to do it.

KidRaw,

I have made a butter for a raw gourmet recipe. It required soaking the cashews and then rinsing them, drying them off, and whizzing them in a VitaMix. I don't know why now, perhaps because I didn't want to add extra oil, I ground the nuts up in a food processor to a meal, then ran them through the Champion juicer with the blank plate inserted, then put them through the VitaMix. If I were to do it again, I would just soak the cashews, drain them, and then chuck them into the VitaMix and use the tamper. I wouldn't run it continuously, but in spurts. The literature says you can make raw nut butters with a high speed blender, so it should work.

Because I never wanted to go through my ridiculous three-step process again, I just started buying this, which tastes the same as my efforts, but was muuuuuch easier:
[www.rawguru.com]

There is some controversy over whether so called raw cashews themselves are still raw because of the complicated hulling process, but I've tasted unroasted cashews from the grocer many times, and "raw" cashews and "raw" cashew butter taste very different to me, so I trust that they are, at least, minimally processed compared to store bought "raw"(unroasted) cashews.

Well, I watched this video --

[www.blenditandmendit.com]

I had been getting the Artisana Cashew butter, but I called them and their answer on whether their cashews were really, really raw didn't satisfy me.

The Sun Foods cashews are hand-shelled and I'll check out the Glaser Farms place.

I have a Blentec instead of a Vitamix with that tamper thing, so instead I tried them in my Krups mini-processor. It took a while because I had to keep stopping it and scraping it off the sides, but it did end up as cashew butter, although thicker than what I've bought. It's good to know I can make my own nut butters without adding oil and they're probably cheaper than what you buy, but I would only do it with cashews - sometimes I wonder if we raw foodists will live a long healthy life, but we'll be deaf from our loud appliances.

So with the cashew butter and making a really good butternut squash soup for the first time, another successful raw day.

Thanks.

KidRaw,

I assume that the Blendtec does the same job as the VitaMix for these things, though many people prefer the Blendtec. In the video, she seems to be using dry raw cashews. Perhaps soaking them in water to soften would result in a more supple product. What she ends up with seems spackle-like! Good to see it, though; thanks for posting.

Now I am left to wonder if, if Artisana cannot source really raw cashews, how do we? Am looking at the pint of raw bulk cashews sitting in my pantry with suspicion now . . .

Thanks Paul for the heads up on the Kitchen Aid. It gets great reviews on Amazon and is around $99.

One reason I don't think I'd ever be 100% raw is that you really don't know about whether you're being hosed and in any case, it's too expensive and time-consuming to track down vendors for every little thing. Although I would make the exception with almonds, given that they are the only alkaline nut

I always thought you would use a juicer to make nut butter. Of coarse I have seen people/rawfoodists do it with food processers but typically when you see penut butter in the health food store they are using a grinder. My juicer has an attachment to do so. So tell me why would you use a blender?

rzman10001,

Because a high speed blender should do it faster, while producing a creamier result and being easier to clean. See my post above--I've done it the juicer way and it's too much trouble.

I just checked out Glaser Farms and here are their raw cashews --

[www.glaserorganicfarms.com]

(But look at the price compared to the others)

It looks like they have a lot of processed raw food, but I wonder how much of it is without salt.

This is where I was getting my cashews --

[www.therawfoodworld.com]

I'm getting these now -

[www.sunfood.com]

This I never saw before - cashews in their skins -

[www.sunfood.com]

I just ordered some of them, so I hope I don't a problem getting the skins off or they may taste bitter with the skins on.

Living Tree Community Foods has a cashew butter that's made from sundried cashews from Indonesia (no salt), and it's *divine,* and as raw as you're gonna get. But very expensive, as all their stuff is. Here: [www.livingtreecommunity.com]

Yes, I was getting their raw cashews and cashew butter, but then I called them up to ask about the butter, and it seemed from what they said, the cashews might not be so raw after all, just because they were 'sun dried'. So I stopped getting their cashew butter, even though I liked it. Their cashew butter is more thick and not as smooth as others, more like the one I just made in my food processor.

I don't get the sun-dried thing anyway - are all cashews dried? Are all nuts dried? If so, I'll have go into a whole other investigation on how all the various nuts, like pecans, macadamias are dried. Are they sun-dried, air dried, tunnel dried?

Living Tree Community's whole dried bananas are great --

[www.livingtreecommunity.com]

Good price and yummy. They're a great travel food, too, except you have to wash your fingers off afterward or carry a fork. Now I'm getting even better whole dried bananas from Whole Foods at a better price with a 10% discount because I buy a case.

Better than those Living Tree dried bananas, really? That's impressive. But I don't do any dried fruit now, only fresh.

The thing with cashews is, I don't think they're ever raw, per se. There are apparently two stages of heat involved in getting cashews out of their shell. Apparently, the Indonesian cashews LTCF sells have been "minimally heat-treated," whatever that means.

If you want to be super strictly raw you probably have to avoid cashews. But i like cashews. Though macadamia nuts are my all-time favorite and my nut of choice at the moment. I used to make my own macadamia nut butter... yum yum.

But, no, all nuts are not dried. I don't believe so, at least. I think they just dry naturally. But let us know if your research shows otherwise.

Macadamia nuts are also my favorite - especially with dates. I'm getting my Date People order of Barhi wet pack this week so I'll be eating a lot of them. I was getting my macadamia nuts in-shell from Hawaii but got too lazy to open them. Who do you think has the best tasting, freshest raw shelled macadamia nuts?

[mac-nuts.com]

Yo, I just bought some bahri dates this afternoon, after agonizing over whether to go with medjool or bahri. Bahri is only available for a limited time; that clinched the decision for me. I go through Pato's Date Garden vis Local Harvest (.org), and I'm fanatical about their quality, and they're also organic and unionized. Haven't tried the Date People, but I've heard good things.

In my opinion Living Tree Community Foods has by far the highest nuts, including macadamias. I've gone through countless pounds of their macadamias. But they're really expensive, and the orders take quite a while to get to you, so I have to admit that this last time I just went with nutsonline.com, where your order comes the next day and the quality is good enough.

But if you haven't had any of LTCF's specialty items, like especially their pistachio and almond pestos- gotta try 'em, amazing stuff. And their Austrian pumpkin seeds and pumpkin seed butter leaves you feeling that you'd never had a pumpkin seed before, just like those cashews and their raw almond butter, too, imo.

Yes, their nut butters and macadamias are good and the pestos sound yummy, but I don't eat salt. I just saw this chart which is interesting - I didn't know walnuts had a lot more Omega-3 than other nuts -


Omega-3 Fatty Acids content in one ounce of various nuts



The Date People have a big variety of dates, but they're pretty expensive, the 15 pound wet pack costs about $75, because shipping was about $20.

[datepeople.net]

This is where I get my pecans -

[mopecans.com]

Here's another product I really like - Artisana Coconut Butter, made from the whole coconut -

[www.artisanafoods.com]

I got it for $9.30 on 'special' (regular $13.99)

Raw Food World has some good prices on nuts and nut butters sometimes with their 'Specials' -

Right now they have macadamias on sale for $12.57 - regular $17.95.

[www.therawfoodworld.com]

Last month I got nut butters through their 'At cost specials' --

[shop.hempspread.com] (I got it for $9.37 - regular $13.39)

[shop.hempspread.com] (I got it for $9.37 - regular $13.39)

[shop.hempspread.com] (I got it for $11.17 - regular $15.95 - and it's delicious)

Sounds like I'm advertising for Raw Food World, but I'm not

No, it's all good. I can't do the coconut butter anymore (or avocadoes atm); my body's taxed out on it.

Macadamia nuts and almond butter are my two nuts of choice right now. I go totally on instinct, rather than considerations of omegas and what not (despite my screen name). Once in a while walnuts hit the spot, only if they're high-quality. And once in a while pistachios.

Those date prices are pretty standard. Speaking of which, any hour now the post-person should be delivering me four pounds of award-winning halawi dates from Pato's Dream. I'm crazy about this company. Barhis coming later in the week.

Btw, for tropical fruit do you know about this resource?: [www.localharvest.org]
And if you click on a specific farm you get a slew of additional fruity options:
[www.localharvest.org]

It's the very tail end of mamey sapote season. I just ordered a ten-pound box, because they freeze well, so get 'em while it's good. I wouldn't recommend ordering papayas from these guys in Florida, though; they're much better from Hawaii, imo (rainbow and sunred varieties blow all all others).

I can't speak to which is better between a blender and a food processor at making a nut butter. But a juicer with a blank plate would be my last choice. I've been using Susan's method outlined above with pretty good results in a food processor. I'm guessing it will take longer in a food processor which is ok with me. The results are what matters. Just for kicks, I will try to make my next batch of almonds butter in the Vitamix.