No Peanuts!

We do not eat peanuts in our house. For those of you who don’t know, my daughter is anaphylactic to peanuts. I feel like that awards me the right to say “I hate peanuts”.  I did a lot of research on peanuts when I was hit with that news and what I discovered will alarm you, allergy or not.

Tree nuts grow on trees, these are your almonds, cashews etc.  Then there are peanuts. They are not technically nuts, they are legumes.  Peanuts grow in the soil and absorb more toxins then the average food grown underground.  Big deal, right?  So they absorb stuff from the soil? Yes, they “clean” the field by sucking all the chemicals from the soil.  Typically farmers rotate crops to optimize their output and they rotate peanuts with cotton.  Cotton is one of the top genetically modified crops in the world.  And it’s sprayed with even more kill-all pesticides because cotton is not a food.  See the problem?  Truckloads of hazardous chemical residue in the soil where they plant peanuts.  Any wonder so many kids are seriously allergic to peanuts?

This is how the majority of non-organic peanuts are farmed.  Is organic better?  Well, organic soils have no Monsanto chemical residues.  Environmentally speaking it is a more responsible purchase.  In my house, organic or not, it’s not allowed.  Even if my daughter weren’t allergic, I would avoid peanuts, just for the fear of cross contamination with regular peanuts.  What if one of those super chemical peanuts moseyed on over to the organic field and made chemical babies?  No thanks, I’ll stick to making my own almond or cashew or sunflower seed butter.

Something else no one talks about in peanuts is “Aflatoxin”.  This is a result of mould on the peanut.  (Yes peanuts are also mouldy.)   Aflatoxin is a known carcinogen.  Carcinogens cause cancer and liver damage just to rhyme off a few significant health concerns.

The moral of the story here folks…. Peanuts are not good for you.  They are not good for your kids, allergy or not.  Make your own nut butters or try my sunflower seed butter instead.