Mixed nuts

Mixed nuts are a snack food consisting of any mixture of nuts in the culinary sense, created mechanically or manually for purposes of human consumption. Peanuts, almonds, walnuts, Brazil nuts, cashews, filberts, hazelnuts, and pecans are common constituents of mixed nuts.NARA (April 2005). CFR Title 21. Part 164: Tree nut and peanut products .110: Mixed nuts. Regulatory action guidance at CPG 7112.06 Sec. 570.700. URLs accessed on 2006-05-17. Mixed nuts may be salted, roasted, cooked, or blanched.

In addition to being eaten directly, mixed nuts can be used in cooking, such as for Tunisian farka, tarts, and toffee. Student food and trail mix consist of nuts mixed with raisins and other dry ingredients.

Market

In Japan, mixed nuts are the second most popular table nuts, behind sweet chestnuts; in the United States, they are second only to peanuts. Mixed nuts have also gained in popularity in the Argentinian market, which imported some $1.9 million in 1997, nearly half from the U.S. During the year 2002, U.S. companies sold $783 million of mixed nuts incorporating four or more varieties, mostly in canned form, representing hundreds of millions of pounds.

The individual nuts that make up mixed nuts are harvested from all over the world. As a Dallas Fed publication supporting free trade puts it,

"In the average can of mixed nuts, you might find almonds from Italy, walnuts from China, Brazil nuts from Bolivia, cashews from India, pistachios from Turkey, hazelnuts from Canada—a true international assortment."

This reality provides an incentive for nut salters to favor free trade for nuts, as opposed to nut farmers, who would generally support trade barriers. In fact, one historical argument for United States salters is that importing nuts can encourage domestic production, since mixed nuts provide a "wagon" on which everyone's sales ride. For example, cashews are not produced in North America, and it is necessary to import them because mixed nuts are essential to the sale of pecans, which are grown exclusively in North America.

Composition

Because they are relatively inexpensive, peanuts are typically a major ingredient in mixed nuts, although they are viewed as less fancy than other nuts. Peanuts are also the ingredient most commonly associated with life-threatening food allergies. Fisher Nuts' brand of "deluxe" mixed nuts advertising "no peanuts" has had to recall a batch because peanuts may have crept into the mix.

Less dramatically, some mixed nuts advertise themselves to contain "less than 50% peanuts". For a 60 Minutes segment that originally aired in 1997, Andy Rooney tested such a 12 oz can of Planters brand nuts, pleading boredom on a Saturday. He determined that "there was a tiny fraction less than six ounces of peanuts . . . amazing precision for a nut factory." Later, in 2004, a cockeyed.com How much is inside? episode estimated that the peanut weight percentage in two such 11.5 oz cans was, in fact, a little over 50%.

Regulations

United States

Percent composition by weight is a serious matter in the U.S., where it has been regulated by the Food and Drug Administration since 1977. The regulation on mixed nuts specifies,

"Each such kind of nut ingredient when used shall be present in a quantity not less than 2 percent and not more than 80 percent by weight of the finished food."

Furthermore, if a variety X exceeds 50%, the label must conspicuously state "contains up to 60% X", and so on in 10% increments up to 80%. (The first example given by the FDA is "contains up to 60% pecans", which is rather unlikely since pecans can be the most expensive component of mixed nuts.) Other rules include a requirement that the label must state whether any peanuts are unblanched or of the Spanish variety. When testing mixed nuts for compliance, the FDA samples at least 24 pounds to reduce sampling error.

Modifying words like "fancy" or "choice" do not have any legal meaning in the United States. In a federal case against "fancy mixed nuts" that were thought to be an inferior grade, U. S. v. 25 Bags of Nuts, N. J. No. 4329 (1915), the court declined to accept a trade standard:

"It seems to me that until the Department establishes a set standard of quality... it would be altogether unsafe... to make them amenable to such a vague and indefinite standard as I understand the Government seeks to establish by the testimony of men engaged in the business of handling nuts."}}

Analogies

The phrase "mixed nuts" is also used to indicate a mixture of disparate elements other than nuts, as in the film Mixed Nuts.
When a container of mixed nuts is opened after it has been shaken, the larger nuts tend to be on top. This phenomenon is known as the Brazil nut effect in the study of granular materials.

References

Nuts and seeds | Snack foods