Apricot Kernels...

[Davylp25]

Anyone tried these? What are they like?

[rawpriestess]

Oh man, these are good,


they are like sweet baby almonds, and taste of apricots slightly.

make sure to soak them, just like almonds, they are from the same species as almonds, apricots, peaches, nectarines, etc.

In almonds you can't eat the fruit, but you can eat the seed, in peaches and nectarines you can eat the fruit, but not eat the seed, in apricots, you can eat both, how cool is that?

[Goldsplinter]

Oh man, these are good,


they are like sweet baby almonds, and taste of apricots slightly.

make sure to soak them, just like almonds, they are from the same species as almonds, apricots, peaches, nectarines, etc.

In almonds you can't eat the fruit, but you can eat the seed, in peaches and nectarines you can eat the fruit, but not eat the seed, in apricots, you can eat both, how cool is that?
Why can't you eat the seeds in peaches?

And why do people soak almonds instead of just rawwwww?

[sport]

I add them to my smoothies but as they have high levels of cynide (I made a mistake the last time we spoke of this and said arsenic) I only use about 6 at the time so I do not even taste them.

[rawpriestess]

Peach seeds have cyanide in them

you need to soak almonds, to remove th enzyme inhibitors.

[veganman]

I had also heard about apricot kernals having cyanide or arsenic - is it not dangerous?

[Pierre]

I eat peach seeds on occasion. But usually when I find a peach seed it has partly liquefied or turned moldy, which means it's not in edible condition.

[JennaBoBenna]

lol, when I was little, 6 or 7, my best friend at the time and I were eating peaches and I noticed that mine rattled when I shook it. When I ate down to the pit, it broke in half revealing the seed inside. The seed was also split in half and we ate it. Afterwards, though, we were afraid we had eaten poison and that we were going to die! But, of course, we were fine ;)

[Spectatrix]

Many members of the rose family have cyanide in the pits, including apricots. There have been cases documented in Turkey of people (mainly children, I think) dying of cyanide poisoning as a result of eating apricot pits.

[Tirza]

The kernel in the pits contains vitamin B17, or Laetrile. This is the substance that was so controversial in the news some years ago. I think that the govt checked it out under certain very limited circumstances and determined that it was not effective in the treatment of cancer, and contained cyanide, which if used without knowledge or restraint could cause poisoning. That caused the treatment to go "underground" and it has since been used in certain Mexican clinics. People would go there because it was outlawed in the USA (and I believe it still is) That is the "party line".

There are still those who strongly believe that it can be effective as a treatment of cancer and even a preventive measure. There are quite a few books out on it and you can find articles about it on the Net. Pro and con.
I was at a vegetarian food fair here last week and was surprised to see a booth that was selling books on the subject as well as apricot kernels. The lady there was telling me that she soaks 6 kernels overnight and eats them in the morning as a preventive measure against cancer. For treatment, she said it is usually recommended to take 1 kernel for every 20 lbs of body weight.

I found a list of other foods that contain B17 and was surprised at how many foods do contain it. In fact, since it is in so many foods, and if it really is a preventive, I am really surprised that people do get cancer at all.

These include: Apple seeds, alfalfa sprouts, apricot kernels, bamboo shoots, barley, beet tops, bitter almond, blackberries, boysenberries, brewer’s yeast, brown rice, buckwheat, cashews, cherry kernels, cranberries, currants, fava beans, flax seeds, garbanzo beans, gooseberries, huckleberries, lentils, lima beans, linseed meat, loganberries, macadamia nuts, millet, millet seed, peach kernels, pecans, plum kernels, quince, raspberries, sorghum cane syrup, spinach, sprouts (alfalfa, lentil, mung bean, buckwheat, garbanzo), strawberries, walnuts, watercress, yams.

[Spectatrix]

There were two clinical studied done on Laetrile and you're right, it was found to be non-effective. From Wikipedia:


Amygdalin is also called laevomandelonitrile, or Laetrile (some claim that Laetrile is derived from a Latin word meaning "joyfulness" (actually laetari is the latin verb to rejoice or exult) for short, and has been advocated by some as a "cure" or a "preventative" for cancer: as there is no scientifically accepted evidence of its efficacy, it has not been approved for this use by the Food and Drug Administration. The US government's National Institutes of Health reports that two clinical trials with laetrile have been published. One Phase I study found that amygdalin caused minimal side effects; the side effects that were seen were similar to the symptoms of cyanide poisoning. One Phase II study with 175 patients had some patients reporting improvements in symptoms, but all patients showed cancer progression 7 months after completing treatment, and it was determined no further tests were necessary.

While no double-blind clinical trials may have been conducted, a clinical trial was carried out in 1982 by the Mayo Clinic [1] and three other U.S. cancer centers under NCI sponsorship. Laetrile and "metabolic therapy" were administered as recommended by their promoters to 178 patients with advanced cancer for which there was no proven treatment. None were cured or stabilized or had any improvement of cancer-related symptoms. The median survival rate was about five months. In survivors after seven months, tumor size had increased. Several patients suffered from cyanide poisoning.
As a side note, apple seeds, bitter almond, cherry kernels, peach kernels, and plum kernels (all from your list of foods containing "B17") all contain cyanide.

[GreenPrince]

I always eat the kernels from fresh apricots during the fruit season, max 3-4 daily, but only if the taste is good,
that's a low cyanide content, which is positive correlated to the taste/smell of bitter almond.

The isolated Hunza people in the Himalaya, discovered by the Western world in the 1920s,
known as one of the worlds healthiest and strongest populations, almost vegans
(only small quantities of goats' milk) and raw as far as possible, depending on the season,
always use(d) the apricot kernels and the oil from them.

And this reminds me of one of my best (true) stories.

An expedition long ago was very suprised to find that the king of Hunza, the emir, had a big Mercedes.
The were no road to the Hunza valley and the air port was a small field adapted for scarcely more than a sports plane.

They asked a Hunza man.
"Oh, we carried the car, said the man. Why?"
"Carried?!!! Impossible!"
"We lashed down the car to two girders and carried it over the mountains. What's the problem?"