North American Fruit Explorers mailing list at ibiblio

[Ginda Fisher <list@ginda.us>]

On Dec 4, 2008, at 1:02 PM, Martha L. Davis wrote:

> Stephan,
>
> "As your friendly neighborhood biochemist" How do you suggest I  
> test apricot kernels for low amigdalyn levels?  I am grafting a  
> variety of types, some of which are known to be sweet pit and some  
> bitter and some unknown.  I am interested in using sweet ones as  
> nuts, but certainly not interested in cyanide poisoning.  I know  
> that it is possible to use heat to denature the enzyme that  
> converts the precursor to the poison, when done on bitter pits one  
> gets a sort of solid almond flavoring not a nut in the munchie  
> sense, but it seems likely that that processing method isn't used  
> on the sweet pit ones and isn't needed.  Any ideas?
>
> Martha

Maybe this is a naive question, but wouldn't you be able to tell  
which are "sweet" by tasting them?  I didn't think apricot kernels  
were so toxic that tasting one carefully would be harmful.

Ginda