Peanut Butter

I can remember as a child helping my dad in the garden, and for the first time learning about “organic”. He was talking about how he wanted to put a border into the garden and I suggested using wood. “It’s treated with arsenic, and I don’t want that to leach into my tomato plants” he said (or so I paraphrase 20 years later). It intrigued me and ever since then I’ve followed news in the food and organic industry. I consider myself to be mostly up to speed, and often ahead of the mainstream on my knowledge of the “new” things to look out for (like the recent worldwide ban of trans fats). But today my world was shaken just a bit more.

Peanut Butter. The ubiquitous spread that graces the plate of every child. The wonderful creamy spread that goes so well with chocolate. The crunchy spread that is as delicious on crackers as it is with apples. There are days where I get a hankerin’ for PB&J and a glass of orange juice (we can get into that another day, I know it’s a strange combo). And Legends deli introduced me to PB with honey and raisins. So, while I don’t eat great quantities of peanut butter, I have made sure that I buy “natural” brands – no added sugars, no trans fats, and yes I occasionally have “ground my own” at local health food stores.

Today, a friend pointed out that peanuts contain a nasty toxin. So of course, I had to drop everything and search for information.

Peanuts can harbor a carcinogenic mold that contains aflatoxin. This goes for conventional and organic peanuts. In fact, peanut farmers have a disproportionately high rate of cancer. This mold grows on peanuts, pecans, pistachios, grains, soybeans, spices, walnuts and it can even grow on milk in warm humid soils. Aflatoxin is known to cause liver cancer. A recent study found the highest levels of this toxin in health food store ground fresh peanut butters!

What! So you mean to say that all the time I thought I was doing something good, I was putting more toxins in my body. How disappointing. It’s things like this that make me wonder – tomorrow are they going to find out there is a micro-organism in lettuce that makes ones hair fall out. And yes, I know that that is what science does. It proves and disproves things, and what was benign one day can be deadly the next. But it still makes me sad.

I realize I may be blowing this out of proportion. After all Dr. Weil says it’s ok. And as long as I buy my peanut butter from companies in dry climates, there is a lower risk of this mold growing. So Arrowhead Mills PB it is.