The treatment conditions that can produce pasteurized almonds based on the aforementioned criteria are listed in Table 2. The responses of panelists to the sensory attributes such as appearance, texture, flavor and overall acceptance of the pasteurized samples are shown in Fig. 6. More than 80% of the panelists did not detect any difference in appearance of the almonds. This supports our finding that the color differences between pasteurized and untreated whole almonds were insignificant. Differences in appearance mentioned by the panelists were related to kernel shape, such as smaller/bigger or rounder/longer. However, such differences were inherent to the almond samples and could not be avoided. The panelists did not detect any difference in the texture and overall quality of any treated sample.