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Why pine nuts are expensive [video]
- giantg2 5y agoLooks like a good application for a drone with shears...
- Mountain_Skies 5y agoI had to develop a taste for walnut pesto. Pine nuts make better pesto but not so much better that they're worth the extra cost.
- andy_ppp 5y agoCashews, brazil nuts or even almonds are all fine so long as you quickly toast them first they taste awesome.
- darkwater 5y agoNo they are not, I belong to the Pesto Striking force and you can definitely tell the difference. :) On the other hand there are smaller, cheaper pine nuts coming from China available here in Europe that are pretty OK for the job. But I'm bit worried by how they are collected, labor wise.
- AdamN 5y agoI generally don't buy any food from China - simply don't trust the health regulations. Seaweed I get from Japan or US, pine nuts - anywhere but China. Of course I'm sure I'm getting quite a bit from China when I'm in restaurants but imho it's not a binary thing - just try to reduce risk.
- andy_ppp 5y agoI didn't say they don't taste different, just as good. One of the best (and Italian) chefs in the world uses bread not nuts so I think the swapping for different nuts isn't the end of the world. Massimo Bottura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adyRuV2eJlM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adyRuV2eJlM
- tomcam 5y agoYou two have opened up my eyes. These actually sound better than pine nuts to me
- analog31 5y agoCame here to make same comment. My family grows basil every summer and our pesto consumption would bankrupt us if we used pine nuts.
- Xcelerate 5y agoI once had some pistachio pesto on a pizza. I wasn't sure what to expect, but it ended up being delicious.
- huhtenberg 5y agoPistachio pesto is also a very good option.
- schnevets 5y agoIt isn't a one-to-one substitute, but Sunflower Pesto can also be delicious on some dishes.
- bitxbitxbitcoin 5y agoEveryone should try harvesting a pine nut from a local pine. They all have them they just might not be of a size worth the effort. It is a good learning experience though! In summer, pick up fallen green pine cones. Wait til they start opening up. Start at the bottom and relish every one you manage to free.
- magneticnorth 5y agoDo you know if other conifers have edible & tasty seeds in the cones, or is it only pines?
- Hayarotle 5y agoThe seeds(known as pinhão) from Araucaria angustifolia are edible and tasty too, they're larger than pinoli and a common winter delicacy in the southern states of Brazil I wonder if there are others
- atmikev 5y agoWell each male tree only has two of them and you have to wait until puberty for them to be ripe. So ya, they're gonna be expensive.
- pietrovismara 5y agoI remember as a child I would often go with my parents to gather pine seeds as we have many pines where I grew up. There were really a lot to be found in the right periods, literally on the streets. Nowadays for some reason they're almost impossible to find, not sure if this happens because everyone realized how valuable they are and is rushing to gather them.
- loonster 5y agoMaybe it was a bad year? Trees alternate from Bumper to Barren. https://www.fusion360ag.com/alternate-bearing-trees-bumper-crops-poor-years/ https://www.fusion360ag.com/alternate-bearing-trees-bumper-c...
- bicx 5y agoSounds like a job for trained squirrels.
- klyrs 5y agoSounds tricky. I'm imagining an orchard with a false floor: when the squirrels bury the nuts, they fall through to a conveyor belt.
- jjgreen 5y agoNow you can add "squirrel trolling" to your résumé, sweet.
- yissp 5y agoYeah, Oompa Loompas wouldn't be able to get the whole nut out without breaking it.
- bArray 5y agoThe Pinenut 01S on the other hand is quite well priced [1] at just $2 each [2]! [1] https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/ https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/ [2] https://pine64.com/product/pinenut-model01s-wifi-ble5-module/?v=0446c16e2e66 https://pine64.com/product/pinenut-model01s-wifi-ble5-module...
- prpl 5y agoI grew up in New Mexico eating (unshelled) and occasionally collecting piñon seeds (pine nuts) though I didn’t realize they were all the same until much later because the taste was so different. You can still buy the unshelled version without paying too much, but it is a lot of work to break the shells.
- heliophobicdude 5y agoSame here! My family and I would pick some from the forest floors where we could. Very tricky to find.
- CameronNemo 5y agoHave any good tips for cracking? I have some local pine trees with large, tasty nuts. But it is such a hassle to separate the nut's meat from the shell. Right now I am just using a hammer and the cement pavement to break the thick shells individually without smooshing the meat. I have heard of a technique where you do not care about smooshing the meat, you just crush the whole nut, shell and all, and place all the nuts in liquid. The shells supposedly float while the meat sinks. I have never tried that though. I am open to any suggestions to make my foraging more efficient.
- mytailorisrich 5y agoMy experience is you need to find the right amount of force in order to crack the shell without smashing it. As a child I found that the right tool helped: too big a rock and everything is smashed, too small and it's not cracked at all, but you can find the right one that nicely crack the shell by taping it on the nut.
- prpl 5y agoyes - we had a specific hammer that worked pretty reliably where the potential energy from a light swing was close to perfect. You could use the hammer end of a splitting wedge too, but you had to be a bit lighter on the touch. Of course, the smaller nuts were always harder to crack.
- derbOac 5y agoOnce I developed pine mouth (https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-us/science/food-risk-studies/pine-nuts-and-pine-mouth https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-us/science/food-r...). It was was one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had; I thought I had stumbled on some strange genetic metabolic disorder that was starting to manifest before I eventually figured out what it was. Basically, everything with carbohydrates started tasting super metallic and bitter, a little like soap or something, and it lasted for days. At first I thought it was all pine nuts. Eventually, after being in a study, and with more attention and study of it, people figured out it's linked to certain reactions some people have to certain species of pine trees in Asia. So then I started becoming picky about where the pine nuts come from, and discovered the US was a major producer of pine nuts up through WWII. I started buying pine nuts from local producers, from which I learned a fair amount about them, that there's different varieties of different size and oil content, with different taste profiles, oil content, and shelf-life. I love pine nuts and am happy in theory to buy them from whereever, but it did open my eyes a bit to possibilities that aren't really being realized. It seems like the US market is drying up due to lack of demand and/or competition, but it would be interesting to see local producers thrive, with an emphasize on varietal quality, sort of like apples etc.
- lizknope 5y agoI had the same thing happen about 10 years ago after buying a bag of pine nuts and eating them all in 3 hours. The strange metallic taste from everything had me worried until I read about it on the internet. It lasted about 3 days and went away. I still eat pine nuts in pesto and probably some other sauces but I never eat a lot by eating them directly from a bag.
- tkahnoski 5y agoDitto. Mine was most noticeable with the taste coffee. I probably cleaned/rinsed the coffee machine three or four times in an effort to improve what was otherwise something I couldn't control. After about a week of playing Dr. Google finally discovered pine mouth and realizing the home made pesto from last week had pine nuts in it.
- 5y ago
- jihadjihad 5y agoOn-topic, pine cones are really interesting! They are the female reproductive organs of the tree. The male cones produce pollen, which gets captured by the female cone and fertilized into seeds (pine nuts). The scales on the female cone open up slightly for pollination, remain closed for fertilization, then open up again once the seed is fully formed and ready to be released. Off-topic, but I'm in a meeting so I watched the video with the "Automated Captions" turned on. I didn't realize that the captions will actually overlay on top of the subtitles when Chinese is being spoken--it results in some, eh, interesting sentences: "Dr. She, the one you need to do that kitchen." "Long time. Your cakehole, who is Jonathan Joseph?"
- kleton 5y agoChina just started importing a bunch of pine nuts from Afghanistan. https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-gets-1st-shipment-of-afghan-pine-nuts-since-talibans-rise-to-power/2408731 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/china-gets-1st-shipmen...
- jonah-archive 5y agoYou can harvest your own (Pinus monophylla) pine nuts in Great Basin National Park: https://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/pinenutgathering.htm https://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/pinenutgathering.htm -- I highly recommend it, it's a great park and you'll really get a sense for the labor involved (and some pine nuts). If you're in the Bay Area the drive out across Route 50 (the Loneliest Road In America) is beautiful as well.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoExpensive? When my wife wants some, she goes out in grandma's back yard (New Mexico) and shakes some pinecones. All it costs is, getting your hands a bit sappy.
- Zancarius 5y agoSadly, we've lost most of our pinyons in this part of NM due to drought! There are quite a few saplings coming back, however. I feel like "a bit sappy" is something of an understatement--they're REALLY sappy trees! But, hey, nothing a little isopropyl can't fix!
- CameronNemo 5y agoYou also have to shell them! Any tips on how to do that?
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoI'll ask
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoRolling pin!
- CameronNemo 5y agoDefinitely tried a rolling pin with no luck. Maybe the shells on these nuts are thicker than a traditional pinyon.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoMy wife has her Aunt's old pasta rolling pin. It's three feet long, 6 inches thick and weight as much as a fence post. So there's that.
- taejo 5y ago
- zachruss92 5y agoI've been really enjoying this kind of content that Business Insider has been putting out. I've been watching their content on YouTube about why things are so expensive and about businesses that have been around for hundreds of years ("Still Standing"). Highly recommend y'all check out their content. https://www.youtube.com/user/businessinsider/videos https://www.youtube.com/user/businessinsider/videos
- Maxburn 5y agoMan this site is toxic, full page cover "lets talk about your adblocker", meanwhile a video with sound is playing in the background and you can't do anything about it. Seriously, what do they expect people to do? I know I hit the close tab in record time.
- horsawlarway 5y agoUblock Origin kills the popover and the auto-play video, but the site also appears to be blank outside of the first paragraph of the article. I also closed the tab immediately.
- LeoPanthera 5y agoThere is only one paragraph. The page is a just a holder for the video.
- OneLeggedCat 5y agoFirefox Tracking Protection blocked most everything on the page all by itself, even the content.
- hinkley 5y agoI'm just using Firefox, no add-ons, no pihole, and I only get one paragraph.
- LordAtlas 5y agoYou'll find it easier to just watch the video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k88Cu5SoABg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k88Cu5SoABg
- dang 5y agoChanged above from https://www.businessinsider.com/why-pine-nuts-are-so-expensive-2021-10 https://www.businessinsider.com/why-pine-nuts-are-so-expensi.... Thanks!
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
- aliswe 5y agoAh, the chalghoza as it is called in Pakistan (mostly imported from Afghanistan). The word comes from the persian words chehel = 40 (iirc) and ghoza = seed pod.
- georgewsinger 5y agoHow have drones not solved this problem yet?
- egberts1 5y agomaking a 8-legged drone to spider up a pine tree would be more attainable in reaching those pine cones on thin branches.
- Koffiepoeder 5y agoFlying with drones through a tree can be incredibly difficult. Secondly, someone steering a drone will probably not have the same yields as someone climbing. In consequence, this would require the whole drone process to be fully automated. A fully autonomous drone flying through trees recognizing the correct cones and managing to harvest them is even harder. Add the short battery life and I fear the economics simply don't work out.
- spoonjim 5y agoMonkeys would be massively cheaper than drones.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- munificent 5y agoI have a side dish recipe I love for cooking pearl couscous that uses pine nuts toasted in butter. The last time I made it, I bought too more pine nuts than I needed for the recipe. I just went and fried them all up in butter. Then I took the leftovers, added some salt, and ate them like a snack. My God, I have never had a more decadent, hedonistic snack in my life. They are like eating angel's tears. If they weren't so expensive, I'd eat my weight in them.
- vl 5y agoThey are not even remotely as expensive in Russia, most common sold variety is shelled, of course. Also, nobody climbs trees to collect them, they use huge mallet to strike tree trunk wearing protective head gear and then collect pine cones from the ground.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ironmagma 5y agoCan the safety regimen really not be improved here? It seems like just having a harness would help.
- jillesvangurp 5y agoI buy a bag of 50grams for about 2-3 euros in my local supermarket. 40-60 Euros/kg. Lets call it about 70$/kg. Of course a whole kilo would be quite a lot. 50grams is a good amount if you are making pesto, which I do a lot because I grow lots of Basil on my balcony
- pengaru 5y agoSomewhat off-topic, but I'd really like to know the real reason I can't buy Turpentine in CA. The petrochemicals they allow are more toxic than a pine tree distillate you can probably drink. It's created a situation where there's basically no food-safe thinners sold on the shelves of my local CA hardware stores. Never in my life would I have imagined the turpentine I handled in childhood would one day be difficult to access contraband... I ended up buying a can out of state to thin some pure tung oil for finishing a food surface. Boggles the mind.
- disqard 5y agoDid anyone else find that website's ads and non-content placement to be utter garbage?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Animats 5y agoTolo News, out of Kabul, reports that there's a glut of pine nuts in Afghanistan, but no way of getting them out of the country.[1] Opportunity there for someone. [1] https://tolonews.com/index.php/business-175138 https://tolonews.com/index.php/business-175138
- macanchex 5y agoAfghanistan resumes export of pine nuts to China: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0BkbrHCEBU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p0BkbrHCEBU
- trhway 5y agothey should just mix-in some poppy into it and it will magically find its way out of the country :) Seriously though i wonder whether any interaction with Taliban - they are government there, so say paying any custom fee, etc. would thus become a material interaction with an officially designated terrorist group - would make one a criminal in the most of the world. >* Harvesting pine nuts is extremely dangerous, and labor is expensive. 30+ years ago working summer construction jobs in Siberia we'd go into the forest to gather the nuts - i mean you'd climb up the pine tree to the very very top where most of the pines cones are, and the top of the pine is swaying in the wind, and there is around you like a beautiful sea of the pine tops moving like a kind of sea waves. Locals though would just get a chainsaw and fall the pine trees and gather the pine cones that way.
- Synaesthesia 5y agoWell sure the US should relax it's sanctions and at least allow them to sell their goods
- baybal2 5y agoMost of "Chinese" pine nuts these days are from Afghanistan/Pakistan, only shipped to China for packaging. You can easily distinguish them. Long ones are from Afghanistan, short from China, Norko, Russia
- trompetenaccoun 5y ago
- sam0x17 5y agoSide note: I've had a recipe that calls for pine nuts for a while, and have had to use walnuts because no grocery store within 30 miles carries them.
- tgsovlerkhgsel 5y agoHere's the summary of the article, which is also all the text content of the "article", straight from the page to save you a click: * Shelled pine nuts can cost $117 per kilogram. * The majority of pine nuts we buy come from natural forests. * Harvesting pine nuts is extremely dangerous, and labor is expensive.
- t0mbstone 5y agoThank you!
- LargoLasskhyfv 5y agoThat's just the caption for the video which plays for about 7 minutes and is actually watchable if you're interested in the steps they need from people climbing into trees, collecting cones up there, and all the steps between that, and arriving where you can buy them packaged.
- joe_the_user 5y agoHere in the mountain areas of California, we actually have quite a few wild and domesticated-gone-wild nut and fruit trees around. There's the gray, one of the few pines who's nuts are edible, there's black walnut and ordinary walnut and the Chestnut as well as wild/feral plums, apples and pears. I have found just one unopened, fallen gray-pine cone so far and extracting the nuts is labor intensive indeed (to get the nuts, put pine cones in a burlap bag and hit is against a wall many time but then you have a bunch of nuts that require considerable cracking ). Black walnut meat is very tasty (more like pine nuts than standard walnuts imo). And the tree spew out a whole lot of nuts. The only problem? The meat seems to be exactly as hard as the shells and the shells don't seem to every naturally open. Perhaps if you smash the things and used some centrifuge you could usable meat in quantity. Chestnuts are easy though, I collect enough for a modest snack each time I go through town lately. Wild food is cool but there's a reason human domesticate and breed plants.
- gremloni 5y agoThis information on black walnut is harmful. The fruits contain a toxic substance called jugalone which cannot be consumed. Every notice a black walnut tree and notice how there are no other plants in a circle around the trunk? That’s because of the jugalone. Have you consumed any without any side effects because that’s interesting considering the number of black walnut trees I have on my property. EDIT: I’m finding conflicting information online so I’m not sure. Apparently jugalone is poisonous to humans but I’m also seeing lots of black walnut recipes.
- egberts1 5y agoso about $10 for each 50lbs worth of selected pine cones. and a single worker can get about 936 lbs per day. or $187/day worth per worker. whew. US migrants make more than that.
- alisonkisk 5y agoHow much do US migrants make?
- aaron695 5y agoIt's not just meat that will be grown in a lab.
- nusq 5y agoI have a couple a friends that own a pine cone processing plant in Portugal. Yes harvesting pine cones is labor intensive and the end product expensive but I think one of the main reasons price became so high was the introduction of plague in Europe causing a shortage of pine trees and increased cost of pine cones. They sell under the brand PineFlavour https://pineflavour.com/en/ https://pineflavour.com/en/