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FDA Deception Continues

When is "raw" not raw?

That's a question you might want to think about the next time you grab a bag of "raw" almonds.

The reason is that as of September 1, 2007, almonds sold in the U.S. as "raw" are required by Federal law to be pasteurized. Does that sound like false labeling to you? It should.

Pasteurization exposes foods to high temperatures to kill any bacteria or microorganisms they may have. Pardon me, but at the risk of stating the obvious, isn't exposing any food to high temperatures remarkably similar to cooking them? And if they're cooked, how can they be labeled "raw"?

Weird.

Why is this important?

For one thing, cooking foods reduces the levels of natural enzymes and other nutrients present in food. There are a growing number of people adding more raw foods to their diet to help reclaim these lost nutrients.

And, of course, there's the blatant lie being told. By the very fact of pasteurization, no pasteurized food can even remotely be considered "raw."

To add insult to injury, you don't have a choice in the matter. The FDA is permitting continued use of the label "raw" on almonds that haven't been roasted while at the same time making it mandatory they be pasteurized. It would have been much more honest to simply ban the sale of raw almonds in the first place.

Even though it's way past 1984, I wonder what George Orwell would say about this kind of bureaucratic double speak?

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