food poisoned and almonds??

i had the worst attack of food poisoning this week, it was about an hour after eating some almonds i had in the fridge. they weren't the freshest, but the first few handfuls tasted great (i even commented to my husband how great they were!!) and then i had a handful that tasted bitter...i thought it wasn't a big deal and had another handful. well, about 1/2 and hour later i had stomach pain, another half an hour later i felt the sickness coming on and well.....i spent the next 24 hours in the bathroom sick as a dog!

i know we have to be careful about raw nuts, these were from an open bin at wild oats. i am thinking i will stay with packaged raw nuts from trader joes. my question is does anyone know for sure when nuts have gone bad? i know a foul smell and taste would be obvious, but these really werent that bad. also, has anyone had similar problems with nuts? i am pretty sure it was the nuts that did it, it was so immediate.

oh yeah, these were unsoaked raw nuts, i was just snacking on them. had been in the fridge about a month i think!

thanks, leslie

I've never had that problem with nuts at all. Trader Joes has had some recalled because of ~ mmm, salmonella I think it was (too lazy to google). Now they do not sell raw almonds. If you have some left, might consider taking them back to WO and telling them of your experience and see if maybe anyone else has had that experience.

I've not had any problems w/ almonds, especially if they've been refrigerated.

Question though~ Are you sure these hadn't been mixed w/ some of TJ's old almonds or just kept in the bag you'd gotten them in?

I'm not sure what you mean by "we have to be careful about raw nuts". Why? In what way? Were the ones you'd gotten from WO organic?

I'd definitely take them back to them though.

:cool:

Nuts, raw OR roasted have a high oil content and can turn rancid. Rancid oil is quite harsh on your body. Perhaps this is what happened to you?

Blessings~

If you took them from an open bin then it is possible that someone had handled them who had not washed their hands after a visit to the toilet. If they are left out like that then this risk is high. If you only buy packed stuf then you are reducing that risk

I've never had this challenge, although I have had food poisoning a few times, always from restaurants, and always involving dairy, hummmm, you think I would have figured it out??? DUH.

anyway, I do know that eating unsoaked almonds will give you a stomache ache for sure, especially eating several handfulls. Also, I posted in a thread a while back about not eating out of open bins in regular stores as for some reason kids seem to run whild and grab at these perfectly placed lower bins of nuts.

Anyway, I always buy my nuts at either Costco, who has them raw and in packages, and way inexpensive (comparativley speaking) or at Marlene's, (a great health food store about an hour away in Tacoma) or at the Co-op a wonderful health food store an hour away in Olympia.

So, this is how I do it. I've never bought things online, so can't tell you about that.

You might wish to try soaking your almonds first, then dehydrating back to crisp, you can add flavors if you like, I personally like honey and cinnamon, or taco spice on mine, but I eat tons plain too. I love them super crisp.

Lately my hubby and I have been eating gorp every night as a snak, we take some of all of the nuts in the house out of the freezer, as I keep some already soaked in there too, and some raisins, he took some raw cacao the other day, and it was okay, as long as you had raisins with it, but without the raisins it was too bitter for either of us. And that is now our late night snack of choice.

pine nuts
macademia nuts
walnuts
pecans
brazil nuts (although I love these so much I usually pick these out to eat separately)
apricot kernels
cashews
raisins
sometimes
cacao
almonds

he makes a big tub of it, that lasts several days.

Funny, sometimes I think HE is the RAWBIE in the house. LOL
each day, he eats more and more raw.

We went out the other day with friends, and the other guy had a big steak, and Dragggon didn't order one (used to be what he would order out) he got a big salald. I was surprised, because he hardly ever eats meat anymore. In fact I can't remember the last time he ate meat, now that I think of it.

HUMMMM, well, he can eat whatever he likes.

i heard that we need to be careful of raw nuts vs roasted because of the salmonella or other stuff that gets cooked off when toasted. these came from a bin, which i have stopped buying stuff from, so i hope this wont happen again. i will definitely try costco and buy more online, i have had great quality stuff online. anyway, just wondered if anyone had similar experiences.

thanks!!!

I just had the raw almonds left over that I bought from Costco several months ago. They were sitting in my fridge, and I am now experiencing food poisiining. I feel so sick! I know it is the almonds, because last week, I felt the same way after eating a few, but did not know it as them. Too bad it took me almost 40 minutes to drive home feeling like this!!

After just reading about the Kirkland brand recall due to Salmonella, I feel like I am unsure where to turn to buy my raw almonds now!

In the meantime, I am going to try to just get this out of my system.

*holding head over the toilet* :(

There has got to b a better way!

This is a shock! I have been buying the Kirkland brand from Costco too. I have eaten lots of raw almonds. But now that I am aware that they should be soaked, I am trying to do that. I dehydrated a bunch of soaked ones and boy, they were good! Too Tempting!

I have also bought a lot of other nuts and never thought a thing of eating them raw. I sure will now!

So if we soak them only, we still aren't assured that they will not have salmonella, right? What do we do then? Just freezing doesn't kill it, it just slows it down. Should we wash them all in soapy water and then soak?

the same thing happened to me last semester. i bought a jar of raw almond butter, couldnt read it because it was in german/french/italian, didnt know i was supposed to refrigerate it, ate some with celery after 3 days of it being on the shelf, and my god ive never been so sick.

tricky almonds.