Cashew nut shells are poisonous. The shell of cashew nuts is very special, not only hard, but also contains highly toxic and corrosive shell oil, which will corrode the skin and have a strong irritation to the mouth. You can't eat it without peeling off the shell first.

Cashew nut shells are poisonous. Cashew nut, also known as chicken cashew nut, is an evergreen tree native to Central and South America, which can generally grow to about 10 meters high. It grows in a very special way. Generally, plant seeds grow in the pulp, or there is a layer of pulp outside. However, cashews are not. The seeds and pulp of cashew nuts are separated, only the top is connected.

Everyone usually eats the seed part at the top of the fruit, which is gray or brown in color and shaped like a crescent moon. There is a hard shell outside, and the nuts inside are cashews that everyone eats. In this way, cashews themselves have shells, so why are all cashews sold in the market without shells? Why do you want to remove all the shells?

This is mainly because the shell of cashew nuts is very special, not only hard, but also corrosive (weakly toxic). It is very irritating to the mouth, and you can't eat it without peeling it first (unhealthy and inconvenient). In addition, the adhesion between nuts and shells is very strong, which requires complete drying or high temperature baking to completely separate nuts from shells.

It is for these reasons that cashews cannot be sold directly in shells like melon seeds. It must be shelled manually to enter the market, which is why cashews in the market are not shelled. However, because no shell at all will lead to unsanitary, the inner shell coating of many cashews is so thin that it will fall off when rubbed.