Soak Your Nuts!
Now that we’ve got your attention, let us discuss the importance of soaking nuts and seeds!
Many types of nuts, seeds and grains naturally have enzyme inhibitors that prevent them from sprouting prematurely. These enzyme inhibitors are not too friendly to our bodies. By soaking your nuts in water for a few hours you break down the enzyme inhibitor and begin the sprouting process making them easier to digest and absorb nutrients from. An added bonus of soaking nuts is by increasing nutrient absorption you are satisfied more quickly and they taste so much better!
Here are the top 10 reasons why you should soak your nuts!
1. To remove or reduce phytic acid. Phytic acid can make already low nutrient bioavailability and mineral deficiency worse. This is especially true with iron and zinc (and to a lesser extent calcium and magnesium.)
2. Nuts, specially walnuts and almonds have a much more appealing taste after they are soaked and rinsed.
3. To increase enzyme activity and digestibility: greater absorption of the food’s nutrients by the body.
4. To increase vitamins, specially B vitamins.
5. To break down gluten.
6. To make proteins more readily available for absorption.
7. To prevent mineral deficiencies and bone loss.
8. To help neutrazlize toxins in the colon and keep the colon clean.
9. To reduce acidity produced by the tannins and phytic acid, and keep body in an alkaline state.
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I printed out this chart and posted it up on my fridge to use a reference guide to know how long to soak specific nuts, seeds and grains:
Additional Tips:
Use glass containers
Soak in a glass container. I use mason jars with lids to soak my nuts as you can see on the image up top. Plastic is not recommended to soak the nuts and seeds, as the plastic chemicals can leech into your food.
Rinse well!
Make sure to rinse the nuts well in filtered water after they have been soaked before consuming them. That brown water you see is the phytic acid and tannins that we want off our nuts and seeds.
Moist or Dry
You can consume them moist and they’re easier to blend like this if you’re going to be making nut butters or cheeses, but if you want to dry them you can transfer to a dehydrator or oven or sun. I don’t have a dehydrator so I just put them in the oven. Since my oven doesn’t go below 170 degrees, I keep the oven door slightly open so that they don’t get roasted and stay raw. Nuts and seeds can require anywhere from 12-24 hours to become hard and crunchy.
Avoid Mold!
Wait until they are fully dry before storing them in a closed container. Any moisture in them can turn into mold. It’s happened to me before, and it sucks! I’ve had to throw away moldy nuts because of this.
Conscious Nourishment 
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