should i soak nuts for butter?

[rawsurfer]

helloooo...

i was just wonderin if i need to soak my nuts before i make butters with them?
thanks

[blaqberry]

Some do, some don't...something about texture issues, dry vs moist. Also, some may because of enzyme inhibitors. If you have a dehydrator, you can always dehydrate them back to "crunchy" and then process them.

We do soak first, and base it on a "whipped cream" recipe, just not so sweet and frothy-like. Works fine...

[rawsurfer]

good deal... i was thinkin maybe if the nuts are refrigerated beforehand the water from the condensation will soak them over time...

wont the enzymes die fairly quickly thoguh when you kill the nut by grinding it into tiny pieces??

[Diana Cda]

helloooo...

i was just wonderin if i need to soak my nuts before i make butters with them?
thanksYes. One should. Those enzyme inhibitors would be a serious problem if one eats nuts without soaking all the time, apparently. Makes sense to me.

From the book from the Hippocrates Institute, if memory serves, it's claimed that we can have up to about 10% of our diet in unsoaked nuts/seeds but that all the rest should be soaked. (I can hunt up the exact reference if anyone's interested.)

I use that as a yardstick. In "emergency" situations, I'll eat a handful of unsoaked nuts when I'm hungry but any food I prepare I always used soaked ingredients. The taste is usually always a heck of a lot better, too!

Another consideration, the food values and vitamin content, etc., etc., always jump exponentially through soaking and/or sprouting. I've read in several different books over the years of the changes in the percentages after soaking and it's always very impressive. So I feel like I'm getting much more value for my money, too, this way. Same nuts/seeds, way more food value <g>!

When I make my sesame seed butter, which for years I made continuously, I just soaked the sesame seeds during the day and when I got home that night, put the seeds on a lined tray in the dehydrator and dried overnight. The next morning, or next evening if no time, would grind up the seeds in my Green Power then add oil to the sesame seed meal and I'd be set for about a 1&#189;-2 weeks. I have never found this to be a hardship. This is one of those things that at first seems like a big deal re extra work but that one adapts to so easily because there is relatively little extra to do. One just has to adjust to the bit of extra wait time while soaking/dehydrating. And if I was ever in a pinch, which though rare did happen, I'd put the seeds to soak then make a small batch using unsoaked seeds just to tide me over till I could make them the usual way.

p.s., The reason I haven't been making this is due to my having purchased a SoyQuick a few weeks ago. As an aside, I was able to do this because I've had a great short-term contract for a few weeks that has paid me well, so have managed to get a couple of things that I really, really needed like this SoyQuick! Boy, what a glorious machine that is! I have almond milk now rather than sesame seed milk since then. Though I have to make it every second day rather than every few days for the sesame seed milk, the extra work is offset by how much I find I prefer this milk over the other, though my sesame seed milk is fantastic, too!

As always, though, as long as one knows the potential health issues involved, everyone must use their own judgment and decide what works best for them. Good luck!