This article was first published inÂ
Slap a tariff on peanuts!
That was the decision arrived at by the U.S. Congress in 1921 after hearing testimony about how American peanut farmers were being undercut by imported peanuts from China. The witness was George Washington Carver, who also expounded on all the uses to which peanuts could be put.
It was unusual at the time for an African American to appear in front of a Congressional committee, but Carver, born around 1864 and raised by Missouri farmers who had owned his mother as a slave, had made a name for himself as an agricultural expert. After graduating from the Iowa State University, he had taken up a position as head of the Department of Agriculture at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.
To underline the importance and versatility of peanuts, Carver had brought along samples of ice cream, candy, instant coffee, milk, oil, ink and a face cream, all made from peanuts. Indeed, in his career he would go on to formulate more than 300 items from peanuts, including soup, doughnuts, shaving cream, laxatives and laundry soap.
“Here is a breakfast food,” Carver pointed to the table in front of him. “I am very sorry that you cannot taste this, so I will taste it for you,” he quipped, eliciting much laughter.
The committee members were so impressed with Carver’s presentation that his allotted time of 10 minutes was repeatedly extended. The “Peanut Man,” as he would eventually be known, concluded by saying that he was unaware of a single case of anyone being hurt by peanuts. That is not surprising given that mentions of food allergy did not appear in the medical literature until the 1920s. Only in the 1990s would peanut allergy be recognized as a serious problem.
At Tuskegee, Carver had carried out research on crop rotation that changed the face of southern agriculture. Cotton, the dominant crop in the south, presented difficulties because it depletes soil nutrients and requires a lot of fertilizer, which most farmers could not afford. But Carver found that rotating cotton with legumes solved this problem. Legumes harbour microbes in their root nodules, which can “fix” nitrogen, meaning that they can convert nitrogen in the air into nitrogen compounds that remain in the soil and serve as nutrients for subsequent plantations. Soybeans and peanuts were ideal for this soil enrichment.
Carver’s name is intimately and justifiably linked with peanuts, but contrary to many accounts, he did not invent peanut butter. Centuries earlier, the Incas were already grinding peanuts into a paste, and in 1884, Montreal chemist Marcellus Gilmore Edson filed a patent for the manufacture of a peanut paste that had “a consistency like that of butter, lard or ointment.” It was to be combined with sugar to make a candy, but there is no evidence the paste was ever sold as a “butter.”
Another candidate for the invention of peanut butter is St. Louis physician Dr. Ambrose Straub, who sometime in the early 1880s crushed peanuts into a high protein paste for his patients who could not chew because they were missing teeth. Straub’s friend George Bayle owned a food-processing plant and produced the “nut butter” that was then offered to the public at the Chicago world’s Fair in 1893.
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, of cereal fame, also claimed to be the inventor of peanut butter based on having filed a patent in 1896 for boiling nuts and passing them through rollers to produce a paste. Kellogg promoted a vegetarian diet in which his nut butter replaced meat, which he claimed encouraged sexual activity that robs the body of energy.
These early versions of peanut butter did not keep well because the liquid oil separated from the solid carbohydrates and proteins. This problem was solved by Kentucky entrepreneur Joseph Rosefield who in 1922 patented a “partial-hydrogenation” process to solidify peanut oil and keep it from separating. The process by which hydrogen gas in the presence of a nickel catalyst converts the carbon-carbon double bonds in liquid unsaturated fats into the single bonds of solid saturated fats had been introduced in 1902 by German chemist Wilhelm Normann.
Rosefield’s partial-hydrogenation resulted in the desired texture for peanut butter, but unknown at the time, it also introduced a side product, the “trans fats” that would become notorious for increasing the risk of heart disease. Today, partially-hydrogenated fats are no longer used in foods, having been replaced by fully hydrogenated vegetable oils or palm oil. These fats, as well as the sugar that is often added to peanut butter, also have issues, but that is not a concern when only a couple of spoonfuls of peanut butter are incorporated into the daily diet. “Natural” peanut butters that contain only peanuts are also available. With these, the peanut oil may rise to the top, but that can be remedied with a bit of vigorous stirring.
While there is no significant nutritional issue with peanut butter, allergy to peanuts can affect up to three per cent of children in westernized countries. Peanut allergy, although not as prevalent as allergies to eggs or milk, is outgrown in fewer than 20 per cent of cases and can have deadly consequences. The most severe reaction is anaphylaxis that can lead to life-threatening respiratory failure unless reversed with an intramuscular injection of adrenalin (epinephrine). Anyone with a peanut allergy must have an EpiPen within reach at all times in case of accidental exposure.
Why food allergies, especially to peanuts, have risen significantly in recent decades is unknown. One clue may come from the discovery that sensitization may not require ingestion but may occur from exposure through the skin. This can happen if peanut products in a house inadvertently contact a baby’s skin. It has been suggested that washing babies every day, a relatively recent practice, may change the skin’s permeability to foreign proteins.
Other possibilities that have been raised to explain the increase in food allergies include changes in the intestinal microbiome during infancy and decreased exposure to infectious agents during childhood that makes the immune system less “busy.” With fewer infectious agents to fight, the immune system may unleash its weaponry against targets that do not actually pose a risk. These are only theories, but what has become clear is that delaying exposure to peanuts does not reduce the risk of allergy.
Studies have shown that in infants with severe eczema or egg allergy, conditions that increase the risk of peanut allergy risk can be reduced by introducing peanut-containing foods into the diet as early as four to six months of age. If there is no eczema or food allergy, guidelines recommend that peanut-containing foods can be introduced along with other solid foods.
I have no personal experience to recount here because peanut butter was unknown in Hungary when I was growing up. However, its popularity, inexplicable to my palate, did prompt me to look into the history of this American favourite that introduced me to the exploits of Carver. I now understand his epitaph that reads: “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.”
