#1104 Peanutty

I love it when I grab a packet of peanuts and the first thing I read on the ingredient list is “Allergy Warning, manufactured on equipment that processes tree nuts.”
No kidding.
I suppose those that don’t suffer from peanut allergies could suffer from tree nut allergies. But tree nut or peanut or over the sea nut you gotta wonder: Did allergies originate in the natural nut¾or the artificial processing?
Case in point, the above-mentioned package of peanuts. I had picked up a little bag of Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts, figuring they were a nice healthy alternative to chips. A little more salt than I usually eat perhaps, but the natural nut value—what with protein, manganese and Vitamin E—would probably be good.
As I was munching on the nuts it occurred to me that they were far more flavorful than some regular nuts I had recently tasted. So off I go to the ingredients list. Planters Dry Roasted Peanuts sounds like they just lay out peanuts and bake them doesn’t it? Wrong. There are 12, count ‘em, 12 ingredients listed on the ingredients list.
Are you ready? There’s peanuts. Then salt, then sugar. Gosh, we all know nuts are better when sprinkled with sugar.
After sugar is cornstarch, I’m guessing to bind the sugar and the salt to the nut. Then there’s the killer chemical MSG, monosodium glutamate. Probably to bring out the salty and sugary flavors.
Then there’s corn syrup solids, or as I like to call it, corn sugar.
Then a very mysterious ingredient—dried yeast. Huh? So you can make peanut bread perhaps? Or peanut beer?
Then gelatin, because, you know, what peanut isn’t better when you add ground-up cow hooves? Then there’s paprika, onion, and garlic powders, spices, and finally, natural flavor.
I always love when they add natural flavor.
I can hear the folks in quality control now: “Call the lab. We added all this other junk and now we can’t taste the peanut. Have them put in more peanut flavor.”
So I’m just wondering. Do you think it’s possible somewhere along the line that it was MSG that mutated DNA and caused the first nut allergy?
America, ya gotta love it.