Supporters of raw nuts file suit over federal law

From nuts to milk, the fight for the right to eat raw, unpasteurized food is broadening.

This week, a collection of 15 California almond farmers and brokers sued the federal government in an effort to overturn a year-old pasteurization requirement that has effectively banned the sale of California-grown organic raw almonds in U.S. stores and via the Web.

The suit follows the passage two weeks ago of legislation to relax California standards on bacterial counts in raw milk. Dairies and raw-food advocates say the existing standards, passed by the state legislature last year, are unreasonably strict. The bill, which is awaiting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's signature, would allow raw-milk dairies to instead comply with certain hygienic production practices.

Such cases pit farmers who want to serve consumers' demand for raw -- if slightly risky -- foods against food-industry groups and government agencies that want stringent food disinfection standards with no exceptions for raw products.

For businesses that produce raw food, fortunes rise and fall with changing food-safety standards.

The plaintiffs in the almond suit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., say the pasteurization rule has prompted some retailers and online shoppers to switch to imported almonds, hurting the small California farms and businesses that serve the raw-food market.

The rule, which took effect in September 2007, requires all U.S.-grown almonds that aren't roasted or blanched to be treated with a fumigant or high-temperature steam to kill microbes. Imported nuts are exempt.

The fumigant, propylene oxide, is not allowed under federal organic-food standards. That means organic nuts must be treated with steam, a process many raw-food devotees consider tantamount to cooking, which they believe alters certain nutritional properties of the foods. Hence, the sale of domestic almonds that are both organic and raw is effectively outlawed.

"A lot of our customers are not happy about it," said Paul Cultrera, general manager of the Sacramento Natural Foods Co-op. He stocks California-grown steam-treated almonds, both organic and conventional.

The Almond Board of California, which represents the state's almond industry, supports the pasteurization requirement and says steam treatment does not alter the nutritional properties of nuts.

Almonds sold at roadside stands and farmers markets are not required to be pasteurized.

The Almond Board of California doesn't keep statistics on raw almond sales. Organic almonds make up less than 1 percent of the state's almond crop, which is forecast to be 1.5 billion pounds this year.

(E-mail Jim Downing at jdowning(at)sacbee.com.)

(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, www.scrippsnews.com.)