I’m not sure about what effects canning would have on the content of phytate and enzyme inhibitors. However, the bisphenol A, preservatives, and high heating that are generally associated with canned foods are good reasons to avoid them either way.

The nuts I tend to eat are walnuts, pecans, almonds, and Brazil nuts. Based on my experience, almonds have consistently been the most susceptible to mold, even after drying them in a dehydrator and then storing them in the refrigerator. In fact, I’ve never seen mold develop on any of the other types of nuts, even after more than a few weeks and without drying.

I’m a little hesitant about dehydrating nuts because of the potential for it to deactivate enzymes and oxidize unsaturated fatty acids, so I usually don’t do it. Instead, I just drain the water after soaking, dump the nuts on a few paper towels to dry a bit, dry the container I soaked them in, put the nuts back in the container, and then store the container in the refrigerator. To avoid mold, I only soak enough nuts to last a week or two.

In regard to not soaking certain nuts, I don’t think it’s that big of a deal as long as they’re not a significant part of your diet.

I soak almonds, walnuts, pecans overnight (8-10 hrs) with salt and Apple Cider Vinegar.
Then I let them do another couple of hours in a rinse soak. When the sun is hot here, I let them dry outside on a plate covered with a paper bag (no bugs please).
I don’t soak hazelnuts,pistachio, brazil or macademia nuts. I hope that is ok.

I tried putting the nuts in the fridge after they were soaked and what I thought was dried.
The walnuts produced mold which really disappointed me as they are not cheap and I hated throwing them out. The almonds fared better, but the nuts have a dampness about them when I refrigerate them after.

Should I just dry them and leave them out, perhaps covered? I never noticed mold when I did that.

I may just give up and order from the links you posted.

Unfortunately, there isn’t much research available on soaking nuts, so the best we can do is to extrapolate based on other foods. I think 8 to 12 hours is a good guideline as a minimum, especially since this can easily be accomplished by letting the nuts soak overnight. Longer is probably better if you don’t mind the hassle.

I suppose that some water soluble vitamins could be lost through soaking, but even if this is the case, I think the sacrifice is justified by the potential for nuts that haven’t been soaked to impair the digestion and absorption of nutrients from the nuts as well as other foods consumed with them.

You’ve write a very useful and nteresting article. I would like to know what’s your opinion on soaking walnuts(as it’s one of my favorite foods) to make them more digestible? Do you think 4-5 hours is enough for walnuts ? Also I’ve notice that when I soal walnuts the water in which they are soaked becomes brownish; do you think that by this we lose some nutrients?

Thank you again.
Susan

It’s tough to say if it’s bad to leave nuts out in the open at room temperature, but I think it’s safe to assume that they’ll be more susceptible to oxidation and mold growth. I store nuts in the refrigerator in a sealed container, and sometimes I heat them at a low temperature in the oven after soaking to help dry them off. I suppose leaving them out in the open isn’t too big of a deal if they don’t sit out for too long and are kept at a relatively cool temperature.

Allowing the nuts to “roast” in the hot Arizona weather is probably a lot better than them being roasted in an oven at very high temperatures, and it might be enough to deactivate some of the enzyme inhibitors. However, heat is unlikely to reduce the amount of phytic acid. If I were buying nuts from this farmer, I’d also want to know what type of salt they’re salted with.

While it may be true that some nuts contain less phytic acid than others, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of data available, and in addition, the amount of phytic acid can vary within the same type of nut based on a variety of factors. Because of this uncertainty, I soak Brazil nuts and macadamia nuts just to be safe, and if I ate pistachios, I’d soak them too.