The best place is in a COOL, DRY and DARK environment. You can keep them in the bag they came in (zip closed tight) or a glass container. The refrigerator is best but not necessary.

Most nuts will also last for up to a year in the refrigerator and up to 6–9 months or so in a COOL, DRY and DARK environment. Almonds tend to stay more fresh for longer periods.

PRO TIP: Macadamia, Brazil & Pine Nuts are best kept in the refrigerator!

Raw and living foods are uncooked fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains and other foods. Raw and living foods contain enzymes.

Cooking food changes the molecular structure of the food. In general, the act of heating food destroys enzymes in food. Living and raw foods also have enormously higher nutrient values than foods that have been cooked.

There is no argument that some vitamins and minerals are lost in cooking. In addition, heating foods can cause chemical changes that can adversely affect ones health (like free radicals). Still other heating processes turn good fats into transformed fats, or “trans-fats”. Trans-fats have been found in studies to be bad for your health.

Right now all almonds grown in the USA are pasteurized and NOT raw. This is due to a federal mandate passed in 2007, see petition here. Since this has happened, many raw food companies started selling unpasteurized imported almonds from countries like Spain and Italy.

Legally, if you are in California you can only buy raw almonds from farm stands but only in small quantities.

At Living Nutz, we had formed a petition to help the Cornucopia Institute win the battle to make domestic almonds legal again. In addition to almonds, many people are not aware that pistachios and cashews are usually steam treated at high temperature to break the shells that contain the edible nut. While this not a federally mandated necessity, it is the method of choice by most processors.

Living Nutz sources its certified organic pistachios and cashews from farmers that crack them open as opposed to steaming them.

Sprouting nuts is similar to the process that they would undergo in nature. When a nut falls off a tree during the Autumn months, it sits on the ground until spring when it begins to germinate and grow.

The benefits of doing this are first to disarm the inedible tannings and toxins that reside in the nut that prevent it from prematurely germinating in nature. The effect this has on the product is noticeable in how it transforms a normally dense nut into a much lighter, easier to digest nut that is more alkaline with enhanced nutritional delivery.

The sprouting process also provides the nut with more vital life force due to the fact that the nut is now further along in its growth cycle as opposed to be ungerminated.

At Living Nutz we use only certified organic and unpasteurized nuts and ingredients. WE DO NOT ROAST OUR NUTS!

Most in the raw food community agree that heating foods greater than 118º(F) lose their enzymes and thus a significant amount of their nutritional value! At Living Nutz – we agree! That is why we dehydrate the nuts at a lower temperature.

Also, roasting Nutz at a temperature higher that 170º(F) will cause a breakdown of their fats and the production of free radicals. When nuts roasted at the high temperatures they are used commercially are consumed, the free radicals they contain can cause lipid per oxidation (the oxidizing of fats in your bloodstream) that can trigger tiny injuries in artery walls, a first step in the build up of plaque and cardiovascular disease.

OUR PROCESS:
1. First, we soak the nuts overnight.

Benefits of Soaking:
• Enzyme inhibitors get neutralized
• The amount of vitamins in your body can absorb increases
• Digestion is much easier
• Phytic acid, which inhibits the amount of vital minerals we can absorb
is reduced

2. We flavor the nuts and gently dry under low temperatures to perfection. This takes about 4–5 days!

Most of the ingredients that we use in Living Nutz are from the USA and almost all of them are 100% USDA/MOFGA certified organic. The few ingredients that are not certified organic are wild-crafted.

Some of the ingredients that we use that are not from the US are our vanilla (from Madagascar) and our almonds (from Spain). We also support small indigenous family farmers in nations like Bali and Bolivia for our Cashews and Brazil nuts.

All of Living Nutz nut products are gluten free! Living Nutz does not make any claims or advise anyone to eat nuts if they have a known allergy!

The benefits of going raw-vegan are boundless. Raw foods are easy to digest, and they provide the maximum amount of energy with minimal bodily effort. Studies have shown that living foods have healing powers that can alleviate many illnesses from low energy, allergies, digestive disorders, weak immune system, high cholesterol, candida, to obesity & weight problems (weight normalization), etc…

Research and real life experiences have also shown that a person can prevent a body’s healthy cells from turning into malignant cancerous cells by consuming mostly a raw food diet & whole organic foods!