Peanuts and Aflatoxin
I’ve been reading a lot of health-oriented web sites and blogs lately, while researching various styles of fasting and dieting. I keep coming across absurd recommendations, like ‘eat plenty of nuts, but not peanuts — those are a legume’. Say what? When did legume become a dirty word? Beans, peas and lentils are all legumes, and I haven’t heard anyone saying they should be eliminated from your diet. Well, except the paleo-diet folks, who say pre-agricultural man didn’t eat legumes. Nonsense. How would humans have known legumes would make good agricultural crops if they didn’t eat the wild ancestral legume species?
Oh Nuts
Saying ‘peanuts are legumes’ seems to convey the message that they are the exception — other nuts are of course — ?? — er — something else. Let’s see, Walnuts, Pecans and Hickory nuts are Juglandaceae; Chestnut, Beech nuts and acorns are Fagaceae; while Hazel nuts and Filberts are Betulacea; — jeeze, I don’t see much of a pattern here. Oh, and Almonds, Brazil Nuts, Cashews, and (my favorite) Pistachios are all seeds, like peanuts. None of those are considered nuts by botanists. They are all (except sometimes peanuts) considered nuts by health-nuts.
Digging deeper into the peanut controversy, some folks point to the fact that certain people are allergic to peanuts — there must be something toxic in there. My wife, Isabel, is allergic to tomatoes (nearly a national crime here in Mexico) — does that mean tomatoes are unhealthy for the rest of us? On the contrary, tomatoes have been found to be especially healthful, and an integral part of the Mediterranean diet which nutritionists say is heart-healthy. Yes, if you are allergic to peanuts you should shun them like the plague — but the rest of us have no reason to stop eating this healthful food.
Aflatoxin
Finally, there is the aflatoxin scare. Aflatoxin is not found in freshly harvested peanuts, but comes from a mold that may grow on peanuts if they are kept in a hot and damp storage silo. In the U.S., peanuts and peanut products are tested to ensure that dangerous levels of aflatoxin (a carcinogen) are not introduced into commercial food products. In fact, when peanut butters were tested for aflatoxin, the lowest amounts were found in the supermarket brands, like our childhood pal Skippy, and highest levels in ‘organic’ fresh-ground peanut butter at health food stores.
So why not ‘play it safe’ and avoid peanuts because the FDA allows minute amounts of aflatoxin (under 20 parts per billion)? Well, that means you will also have to give up pecans, pistachios, walnuts, milk, grains, soybeans and spices — they have all been found to contain aflatoxin at times.
