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美国杏仁走上了巴氏杀菌的道路!

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Almonds are headed for pasteurization

By CAROL NESS
San Francisco Chronicle
2007-04-30 00:00:00

Glenn Anderson is having a tough time swallowing the almond industry's new rules that require heat treatment or chemical fumigation of the nuts he grows on 12 organic acres in the Central Valley of California.

"Most of our customers have called me and said, 'We don't want pasteurized almonds, we want them raw, directly from the field,' " says Anderson, 72, an organic pioneer whose farm in Hilmar, near Turlock, Calif., has been in his family since 1912. "I think it's being shoved down all of our throats."

"Pasteurization" is the California almond industry's response to two salmonella outbreaks, traced to almonds, that sickened a total of about 130 consumers _ and resulted in lawsuits _ in 2001 and 2004.

Starting Sept. 1, under industry-written rules adopted March 30 by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, almost all almonds sold in the United States will have to be treated, either with short blasts of steam or dry heat, or with a carcinogenic chemical that's used to make bowling balls and foam seat cushions as well as insecticide.

Consumers will be none the wiser, since no labels are required to say whether, or how, the nuts have been treated _ even those labeled raw. Already, many almonds are pasteurized voluntarily, especially by large producers.

Almonds sold through farmers' markets, roadside stands and Community Supported Agricultural (CSA) boxes are exempt.

Steam treatment is allowed under federal organic rules. Conventional producers can use steam or propylene oxide, a chemical that's listed as carcinogenic under California's Proposition 65 and is commonly used to kill insects and bacteria in raisins, spices and cocoa.

Salmonella isn't a common problem in nuts. About 40,000 Americans are infected with the bug each year, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control. Meat, poultry, and eggs are by far the biggest causes, since animal feces are the main way salmonella spreads.

Federal food safety regulators have handled the threat by recommending thorough cooking. But almonds are often consumed raw. And with the rehabilitation of nuts as healthful foods, consumption is rising quickly.

So when the second salmonella outbreak hit three years ago, the Almond Board of California went into action.

California grows the entire U.S. almond crop, some 1.1 billion pounds in the most recent harvest (2006-07) worth $1.6 billion, according to Almond Board president and CEO Richard Waycott.

"Food safety and human health are our top priority as an industry," Waycott says. "So over the years we've done whatever we can to improve the safety of our produce."

Expert and consumer testing showed pasteurization causes no significant changes in the way almonds taste or their shelf life, according to both the USDA and Waycott.

Organic grower Glenn Anderson hasn't tasted the pasteurized nuts _ but to him, and his customers, that's not the point.

"We have a budding raw food movement," he says.

One of his customers is Living Nutz, a tiny raw snacks company in Maine. Because of pasteurization, co-owner Seth Leaf says he won't be able to find nuts that he considers truly raw.

A petition Leaf posted on the Living Nutz Web site, asking the USDA to reconsider, attracted 10,000 signatures the first week it went up.

Anderson's customers in Japan have let him know they don't want pasteurized nuts _ but they don't have to worry. The rules don't apply to almonds sold outside North America, which constitute more than two-thirds of the crop.

Customers at Bay Area farmers markets are incensed, says Judith Redmond of Full Belly Farm in the Capay Valley (Yolo County).

"A lot of farmers' market people have the sense that my food is safe _ I know the farmer, it's grown locally, they already trust it," she says. "And they don't trust the process that says it needs to be treated as if it's part of an industrial process."

Redmond, who is also president of the board of the California Alliance with Family Farmers, says industry makes a mistake when it lumps huge farms, especially conventional ones, in with small and organic farms, whose systems depend on building strong soil teeming with good microbes to keep the bad microbes in check.


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