Businesses are producing a wide variety of processed nuts, some of which are cooked. Those businesses boast that their products are healthy, but we are fools to trust businessmen. Our current economic system focuses on sales and profit, and businessmen have proven time after time that they are dedicated to profit and stockholders, not consumers, human health, or society. Therefore, we ought to wonder, how many of these processed nuts are truly healthy or safe to eat?

 
I've eaten some freshly harvested pecans and macadamia nuts, and I think they are delicious when warmed up to about 48°C (120°F). I've also had fresh walnuts, and I love to toast them very briefly, until their outer shell crackles. However, I think that higher temperatures ruin the flavor of the nuts.

Some of the nut products have been flavored to such an extreme that they have no resemblance to nuts. The nut is simply a carrier for the flavor. For example, the cheese flavored almonds are delicious, but when I eat them, all I notice is the cheese flavor. I don't see how the almond is adding anything to the flavor. The almond seems to be just a crunchy carrier for the flavored cheese powder, in which case, why waste money on the almonds? Why not put the flavored cheese powder on something less expensive and easier to digest, such as breadcrumbs, thereby creating a "flavored crouton".

Or, if the cheese powder is truly safe to eat, then we could provide people with the powder all by itself, and then we could sprinkle it on to other foods. If we want something crunchy, for example, we could sprinkle it onto chopped up carrots or celery stalks. This would give us a crunchy cheese flavored food, but in a very digestible and healthy form.
 

The roasted almonds that are coated with a strong flavoring agent are delicious, but it is flavoring powder that tastes good, not the roasted almond. If the only way to attract you to a particular food item is to add a very strong flavoring agent to it, then you ought to consider that there is something wrong with that particular item, and that you should not eat it. The exception would be for foods that we know are healthy for us, but which we just don't like to eat, and there may be lots of them. For example, we might discover that cartilage, tendons, eggshells, livers, and certain bones can provide us with valuable nutrients or minerals. In such a case, we could grind those items into a powder and mix them into some other food, such as sausages.

If roasted nuts are truly nutritious for us, then we would be justified to coat them with tasty powders, but are any of the roasted nuts good for us? We ought to investigate the issue before we consume the processed nuts. When I've eaten roasted nuts while my stomach is empty, it seems as if my stomach has trouble digesting them. Perhaps the stomach irritation was simply due to the very high fat content of nuts, in which case all we have to do is reduce the quantity that we eat. However, I think we should investigate the issue of whether stale or roasted nuts are truly healthy for us.

I think we should follow the philosophy that the flavoring agents should be optional, and if they are a requirement for a particular food product, then we should take a close look at why it is a requirement for that particular food. It's possible that the food is unnatural, which is why we don't want to eat it by itself. I don't have to put any flavoring agents on a piece of cooked meat, at least not when I cook it at a low temperature as I show in this series of files. I want flavoring agents on my meat when it is overcooked or stale.

If the only way you will eat a food product is to dominate its flavor with some other flavoring agent, then we ought to wonder, why are we eating it? In regards to nuts, if the only way you will eat almonds, walnuts, etc., is to cover them with flavored powders, or sugar and cinnamon, then why are you eating them at all? Why not eat something that you enjoy?

I've had some freshly harvested walnuts and pecans, and I don't have to put any sugar and cinnamon on them, or dip them into a cheese sauce. I think walnuts and pecans are delicious when fresh, and since they ripen during winter, I prefer to eat the fresh walnuts by briefly toasting them so that the outer shell becomes slightly crispy, and the walnut warms up very slightly. I toasted pecans for an even shorter period of time, simply to warm them up a bit. I do not like cooked nuts, and stale nuts are not very pleasant, either.

Since both of those nuts have a very faint flavor, I eat them as an appetizer before a meal. This brings me to an issue that I mentioned in the main file; namely, that I think it is best to eat the faint flavored foods as appetizers at the beginning of a meal. If you eat walnuts at the end of the meal, when you're not very hungry, they will seem bland, and you will be tempted to add flavoring agents to them, in which case, you are wasting the walnuts. You may as well eat pieces of flavored bread crumbs.
 

	• Is it wise to let factories mash nuts into pastes that may not be consumed for months or years? Or should we mash nuts only minutes before we want to eat them?
	• Some companies are producing a milk made from almonds, but is a "nut milk" really better for us than milk from cows, rice, or soybeans?
	• Is it wise to grind up nuts and bake them into such products as chips? If so, should we allow these products to be produced months or years before we consume them? Or should restaurants produce fresh chips for us only when we are ready to eat them?