So it all started when daughter #1 wanted more pistachios for her school lunch. Now mom wheels an AMG Mercedes but is too cheap to buy the kid some salty tree nuts but I digress...
I wanted to know what the better deal was so science! I bought a bag of 8oz in shell for $4.99, 6oz shelled for $5.99 and a 12oz shelled for $10.99 because it looked like a decent deal being on sale and I wanted snacks independent of the testing. My theory was that the in shell would be the best deal because less processing. All dependent on the grocer pricing schemes of course.
From the 8oz in shell bag I shelled and weighed 10 nuts with my reloading scale that goes to .001 oz. The result was 53.4% of the weight is edible. Kid shelled the entire bag and we repeated the weighing Came out to 53.8% edible so my estimation wasn't horrible. Worked out to 4.3oz edible from 8. $1.15/oz vs 1/oz in the six ounce bag.
So in this store buy the big bag of shelled if the goal is most calories for your buck. But then I thought about the human factor, you have to work a lot with the shells to be able to scarf handfuls of nuts. A lot of our lives what we eat is determined by how long we have to eat, so you may get more mileage and less calorie intake from slightly more expensive in shell nuts. Or if you are an addict that likes occupying your hands. If you are extremely disciplined then preportion the already shelled ones and go.
Then I found an article that pretty much confirmed, although it said the shelled sold for double the price. And they may depending on the grocer. But they confirmed the 53% edible.
https://recipes.howstuffworks.com/why-pistachios-are-sold-in-their-shells.htm
