Pistachios: Nuts not all bad

Love to munch on pistachios? If they are salted and roasted, there's no chance that you can get salmonella from them; the roasting process kills the bacteria.

Kraft last week had to recall trail mix that had tainted pistachios in it, mostly because the California plant that processed the pistachios were mixing raw and roasted nuts together, a big no-no.

But as big a producer as California is, it's not the largest supplier of pistachios. That falls to Iran, where the pistachio was first domesticated. Here's a chart showing where most of the world's pistachios come from.

Country               Share of 2005 production
                          (in tons)
Iran                     190 000
United States       140 000
Turkey                 60 000
Syria                   60 000
China                   34 000
Greece                 9 500
Italy                     2 400
Uzbekistan             1 000
Tunisia                     800
Pakistan                   300
Madagascar             160
Kyrgyzstan               100
Morocco                     50
Cyprus                       15
Mexico                         7
Mauritius                     5

Statistics from The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations