Quote

I can crack open the hazelnuts in my garden with my teeth. Easily.

Is anyone good at cracking open Brazil nuts ? Thats a tough nut to crack and have them come out whole unless they are steamed with very hot steam.

debbietook Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Aha, but don't you think we've been
> designed/evolved/whatever to the point where,
> unlike most other animals, we've been given the
> brains, the ingenuity, the inventiveness to be
> able to get inside them? Should we ignore that
> gift from our maker/evolutionary development
> (depending on your perspective) and refuse to eat
> them?
>

Good point, but I'm still lazy so if it involves any effort at all, I'm less likely to do it. I see them a lot and don't feel the need/desire to eat them.

> And, even if we couldn't get into them with using
> our hands thousands of years ago, chances are we'd
> have used our teeth, as they'd have been in better
> nick.
>

Back when I was little I remember we had to use a hammer to try to open many of the nuts at halloween. We'd really have to smash some of them open. On the other hand I was looking at walnuts today and they look almost like peanut shells and quite easy to open.

> I can crack open the hazelnuts in my garden with
> my teeth. Easily.
>
> Go on, SI...go nuts! Try some creamy
> almonds...(not pasteurised in UK, before anyone
> jumps in!),
>
> (I differ from many in raw that I think nuts
> are...wonderful, tasty little nutrition-packed
> powerhouses, and they don't give me any digestive
> problems.)

The thing is, and this is part of the reason I've never eaten avocado or other things either, I'd be a little afraid I might get hooked on them. Remember the whole muesli/yoghurt/peanut thing??? Sweet lord... I don't think any of us want to go through that again And before that there was milk/bread/biscuits. I somehow feel a bit more comfortable with what I know. Maybe people do get hooked on them and they are very easy to eat too much calories with. I'd prefer to just eat some raw peanuts for now.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2009 08:43PM by SuperInfinity.

Superinfinity, I know you can't post right now, but hope you can still see this.

Went to Tesco and they sold two kinds of in-shell peanuts - roasted and 'raw'. I'd always written off the 'raw' before, as had understood they'd been cooked in some way, or dried way beyond the point at which they could be considered raw.

Anyhow, I did try sprouting them.

And...they've sprouted beautifully!

So Tesco raw in-shell peanuts are well and truly raw.

Very grateful to you for starting this discussion, as it's usually the case that we find out that something we thought was raw isn't, so it's good to find that something we thought wasn't raw IS!

BTW they don't actually taste good sprouted, but taste very good unsprouted!

Has anyone tried the Jungle Peanuts? They're a peanut variety newly introduced to "civilization" from the jungles of Southern Ecuador. They are aflatoxin-free, and are sold raw, organic. They're reddish brown, with black stripes. Wild-looking!

They're expensive, but easy to grow, very good when soaked overnight (but I like them straight from the package). Some brands are better and fresher than others. Wilderness Family Naturals are very good:

[www.wildernessfamilynaturals.com]

suncloud,

To me jungle peanuts taste like the "real" peanuts I ate as child at farms and stuff, before peanuts were hijacked by nefarious agricultural interests. Jungle peanuts are very expensive though--good thing I'm not big on fat!

I'm all about nuts! But no, peanuts are not nuts. They don't even belong in the same sentence as food like almonds or walnuts.

If you search for unpasteurized raw almonds in google, there are still a few farmers you can get raw almonds directly from. Don't give up!

And peanuts, well, I've never found them raw. Has anyone actually had fresh raw peanuts?

Yes, tbdafoe, if you read back in the thread some have had them fresh from the farm, one grows jungle peanuts, those in Ireland and the UK can get truely raw sproutable peanuts in shell off the grocery store shelf. And I think they compare well nutritionally to almonds as long as they are grown, harvested and stored properly which China seems to have down to a science and maybe Spain?

peanuts

are

peanuts

Are jungle peanuts peanuts?

It looks to me like Jungle Peanuts are true peanuts (groundnuts) of the variety aequatoriana, grown in Ecuador.

"Variety aequatoriana is characterized by leaflets with a hairy adaxial surface, long reproductive branches from the lateral branches and large, rough-looking pods containing 3 to 5 colorful seeds."

[crop.scijournals.org]

Skimming through the article, variety aequatoriana was the only groundnut noted for its colorful seeds.

In 1998 there was a collaboration in Equador to catalog peanut varieties for study and plant breeding purposes --

"In all, we collected more than 200 accessions of native peanut landraces," Williams says. "The new accessions include landraces of all six botanical varieties of peanuts (Arachis hypogaea): hirsuta, hypogaea, fastigiata, peruviana, aequatoriana, and vulgaris. This shows the broad genetic diversity of peanuts available in Equador. Some of the landraces were previously unknown to science."

Of the several aequatoriana landraces they collected, only two were previously known. "Ecuador is the center of diversity for aequatoriana, which has large, rough-looking pods containing three to five colorful seeds," Williams says." [www.ars.usda.gov]

Maybe there is a variety that can be grown at 43 degrees north latitude where I live, it would be fun to try to grow them.

Hi Loeve,

I think you can grow the jungle peanuts where you live.

They should probably be pulled before the plant turns yellow and dies off, or else they could start to sprout under the ground. Might take a little experimenting to figure out just when to pull them for the best results where you live.

You could probably plant them in the spring. I don't know how they would take a hard frost. Maybe cover them with a suitable row cover early in the spring and/or try a few plantings at different times if you have the space.

They're a nitrogen-fixer, and the hulls are a great source of nitrogen-rich vegan fertilizer for other plants.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/18/2009 07:38PM by suncloud.

peanuts

are

pea nuts

peanuts

are

la nuts



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/22/2009 01:25AM by loeve.

peanuts

are

like

nuts

suncloud Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hi Loeve,
>
> I think you can grow the jungle peanuts where you
> live.
>
> They should probably be pulled before the plant
> turns yellow and dies off, or else they could
> start to sprout under the ground. Might take a
> little experimenting to figure out just when to
> pull them for the best results where you live.
>
> You could probably plant them in the spring. I
> don't know how they would take a hard frost.
> Maybe cover them with a suitable row cover early
> in the spring and/or try a few plantings at
> different times if you have the space.
>
> They're a nitrogen-fixer, and the hulls are a
> great source of nitrogen-rich vegan fertilizer for
> other plants.

Thanks, Suncloud, I think you're right and jungle peanuts will grow here, especially if planted early in the spring with a row cover.

Oh, and peanuts

are

ground nuts

peanuts are driving me nuts

I keep hoping Superinfinity will come back and say something more about peanuts...
I'm mad about them.