Super Eco

Photo credit: sarah gilbert

Like peanuts in your food? Now may be a good time to consider switching to baking your own peanut butter cookies and assembling your own peanut butter crackers. What's more, you may want to avoid everything sold on your grocer's shelves with any peanut content; and, to be safe, go with the fresh-ground organic peanut butter in the bulk aisle. It's not just the green choice, but may be the only totally safe one, as well.

After six Americans have died "possibly connected" to the ongoing salmonella outbreak because of tainted product from industrial peanut butter manufacturer Peanut Corporation of America, the Food and Drug Administration is now warning consumers to avoid everything that contains peanut butter; because the federal agency just can't be sure which products might contain raw ingredients from the factory that was the source of the outbreak. The FDA says that both peanut butter and peanut paste made from ground roasted peanuts, manufactured in Peanut Corp.'s Blakely, Georgia, plant contained the bacteria, though it has not yet confirmed a direct link between the 474 sick people and the peanuts.

But wait: it's not just peanut butter products, but all cereals, ice creams, sandwiches, crackers, cookies and other products that have peanut content; evidently the Peanut Corp.'s products are so ubiquitous in American food factories that no one can untangle the food chain. All the more reason to avoid conventional peanut products altogether. Can we just talk about peanuts for a minute? 

Conventionally grown peanuts hold all kinds of potential toxins, even ignoring the obviously quite dangerous salmonella risk. Pesticides tend to concentrate in seeds, and peanuts, grown in moist soil that is a haven for mold and insects, are grown with a surfeit of pesticides. The chemistry works against peanuts in every way; pesticides end up in the soil, and peanuts grow under the soil, with highly permeable skins. The poisons just seep into the protein-packed legumes, and soon you’ve got a prime growing medium for a special kind of fungus that releases an aflatoxin—a dangerous carcinogen.

Aflatoxins, however, are not just present in conventional peanut products, but organic ones as well. In my house, we've given up peanut butter and choose local hazelnut butter instead; even if you haven't chosen to become a full-fledged locavore, you may want to start choosing local, organic nuts that haven't been grown underground; pecans, walnuts and hazelnuts are three relatively safe choices available locally in many states in the U.S.