Topic: Suppliers Using Nuts to Bulk Out Cumin Powder

[Naga]

Saw this news over the weekend. Disastrous Indian cumin harvest is potentially bad news for those with nut allergies.

[macferret]

None of this makes sense. How are nuts in any way a substitute for cumin in a supermarket ready meal recipe? Spot market prices of cumin seed have been volatile, but as a proportion of cost in your average curry portion, it's not even a cent of difference.  The article has a big picture of peanuts, but goes on to claim that almonds are being used to replace cumin. Even if this made any sense, almond allergy is very rare compared with peanut allergy, so the public health threat would be small.
And if someone is really trying to pass off ground nuts as whole cumin seed, they must be an idiot: they don't look, smell or taste remotely similar.
This Independent article carries the name of Tom Bawden, who is either a complete idiot or a cynical hack who reckons he can get away with publishing a load of random drivel in the confident knowledge that his readers will swallow it up and come back for more.

[Naga]

Not that I really care as I don't suffer from a nut allergy, but I didn't anticipate such a robust response to what is, in effect, nothing more than a heads-up for those who do have problems with nuts.

Even the briefest of skim reads reveals that the article's author (who is an Independent newspaper staffer) is simply reporting the concerns of Prof Chris Elliot and the Food Standards Agency. He also reports that Morrison's Fajita Kit has been withdrawn due the undocumented presence of almond in the spice mix (so has ALDI's as reported by the BBC) and that almond protein has also been found in Bart's ground cumin.

Better know about something that might be significant rather than remain in ignorance.