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Mixed nuts are a snack food consisting of any mixture of mechanically or manually combined nuts. Common constituents are (actually a legume), , , , , Corylus avellana (Corylus maxima), and .NARA (April 2005). CFR Title 21. Part 164: Tree nut and peanut products .110: Mixed nuts. Regulatory action guidance at CPG 7112.06 Sec. 570.700. URLs accessed on 2006-05-17. Mixed nuts may be salted, roasting, cooking, or blanched.
In addition to being eaten directly, mixed nuts can be used in cooking, such as for farka, , and toffee. Trail mix consists of nuts mixed with and other dry ingredients.
The individual nuts that make up mixed nuts are harvested from all over the world. As a Dallas Fed publication supporting free trade puts it,
This reality provides an incentive for nut salters to favor free trade for nuts, as opposed to nut , who would generally support . In fact, one historical argument for United States salters is that importing nuts can encourage domestic production, since mixed nuts provide a "wagon" on which everyone's sales ride. For example, cashews are not produced in North America, and it is necessary to import them because mixed nuts are essential to the sale of pecans, which are grown exclusively in North America.
Some brands of mixed nuts advertise themselves to contain "less than 50% peanuts". For a 60 Minutes segment that originally aired in 1997, Andy Rooney tested such a can of Planters brand nuts, and determined that "there was a tiny fraction less than six ounces of peanuts ... amazing precision for a nut factory." Later, in 2004, a cockeyed.com How much is inside? episode estimated that the peanut weight percentage in two such 11.5 oz cans was, in fact, a little over 50%.
Besides peanuts, cashews are usually the next least expensive nut, and in deluxe mixes they tend to be the most common ingredient. Hazelnuts and Brazil nuts are also relatively cheap, while pecans are the most expensive ingredient.
On March 15, 1977, the FDA promulgated a new standard of identity for mixed nuts in 42 Federal Register 14475. The present standard, as modified by 58 FR 2885, Jan. 6, 1993, requires that mixed nuts must contain at least four different varieties of tree nuts or peanuts. (Products with three or fewer varieties are now commonly labelled as simply "mixes".) The container volume must be at least 85% filled, and the label must state whether any peanuts are unblanched or of the Spanish variety.
The most detailed section deals with weight percentages, which specifies that "Each such kind of nut ingredient when used shall be present in a quantity not less than 2 percent and not more than 80 percent by weight of the finished food." If a variety X exceeds 50%, the label must conspicuously state "contains up to 60% X", and so on in 10% increments up to 80%. (The first example given by the FDA is "contains up to 60% pecans".) When testing mixed nuts for compliance, the FDA samples at least 24 pounds to reduce sampling error.
Modifying words like "fancy" or "choice" have not historically carried any legal meaning in the United States, and they remain absent from the current regulations. In a 1915 federal case against "fancy mixed nuts" that were argued by competitors to be an inferior grade, U. S. v. 25 Bags of Nuts, N. J. No. 4329 (1915), the court declined to accept a trade standard. The ruling said
The phrase "mixed nuts" is also used to indicate a mixture of disparate elements other than nuts, as in the film Mixed Nuts.
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