Scientific Publications by FDA Staff

J Forensic Sci 2012 Sep;57(5):1313-7

Cyanide and Amygdalin as Indicators of the Presence of Bitter Almonds in Imported Raw Almonds.

Toomey VM, Nickum EA, Flurer CL

Consumer complaints received by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in August 2010 about raw organic almonds tasting "bitter" opened an investigation into the presence of bitter almonds in the imported product. Bitter almonds (Prunus amygdalus) contain the cyanogenic glucoside amygdalin, which hydrolyzes to produce cyanide. Ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry was used to detect and quantitate cyanide, and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry was utilized to detect amygdalin in the submitted samples. Control bitter almonds were found to contain 1.4 mg cyanide/g and an estimated level of 20-25 mg amygdalin/g. The questioned samples contained between 14 and 42 mug cyanide/g and were positive for the presence of amygdalin. Sweet almonds were found to be negative for both compounds, at levels of detection of 4 mug cyanide/g and 200 mug amygdalin/g.