Nightlight News

It is just now coming out - and somehow the title of my last post, through some sort of unintended divination, has acted as a day or two early forecast of the unfortunate news that Peanut Butter, that energy packed sticky slime of vegetable oil and legume, is full of salmonella (see right). Not all Peanut Butter, but Peter Pan and Wal-Mart peanut butter. Sez who? The Center for Disease Control, our epidemiological powerhouse of a federal agency devoted to keeping you in bed and not vomiting all night. This is what they say - but the short version is that about 300 people in almost 40 states are sick cuz they either A) bought the generic brand at Wal-Mart, lured by the low price smiley face of violent illness, or B) bought Peter Pan brand name brand peanut butter, lured by the promise of eternal youth, Disney memories, and the chance that Tinkerbell pooped in their jar. (After all, isn't Tinkerbell some kind of endangered tiny songbird species originally used in deep mines to determine air quality, later replaced by canaries?).

Hmmm. I eat that organic natural crap, which is usually awful. The texture and consistency leave something to be desired, although I have found the Harris Teeter brand to be particularly palatable. It's actually creamy, and not so hard to spread, like the all natural grind your own variety that plops so heavily from the grinder at the food co-op. Regardless, try it on a locally made artisan sunflower loaf slice with some kind of fresh-made jam from Pat Bass at the Carrboro Farmer's Market, but get there early cuz her jellies sell out quick. They are sooo good. Dried fruit and honey also make excellent additions to your hippy-dippy enivironmentally friendly, healthy, socially conscious, pro-America PB&J.
Apparently you can tell whether your sorry-ass mass produced peanut butter is afflicted by the stamped numbers on the pb lid. The link in this whole light brown mystery is that both brands are manufactured by ConAgra Foods, who also bring us other highly processed food products with labels such as Orville Reddenbacher, PAM, Slim Jim, and Chef Boyardee. That's quite a roster. And of course, another food contamination scare linked to a massive distribution network of a packaged food product begs again the question - when is our federal government going to get serious about supporting local food systems?
Apparently Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns has authored a Farm Bill that would eliminate a large number of federal agriculture subsidies, including eliminating pay-outs to all farmers who adjusted gross-income exceeds $200k. A good first step on the long path towards a radical revisioning of our agriculture system, but questionable in its efficaciousness. After all, if the Farm Bill isn't actually implemented by Congress, then it remains an impotent document. And perhaps a large number of members in the current Congress are still beholden to the large agricultural interests. Our current food system lacks such transparency that even peanut butter scares don't really translate to immediate consumer awareness of the fundamental flaws in industrial agriculture and massively aggregated food production. Even though the basic problems of our subsidy system have been reported on tirelessly, I doubt whether the average burger-eater really gives a fuck.

How did the PB get contaminated? That would be hard to say, especially since salmonella begins in the feces of animals, mostly birds (like Tinkerbell, above left). However, at the factory, the nuts used in the peanut butter are heated to a salmonella killing 165 degrees before they get ground to a paste along with the myriad other ingredients and then squirted into a jar. These processes occur at very high speeds, and there are really only a couple of minutes between when the peanuts get heated and then they are squirted into jars and capped, sealing out contaminated shit particles. Even though the peanut butter is racing around that factory faster than chickens can run, a lot of things happen between the heat step and the jarring, so it's hard to pinpoint the contamination.
Are you a Great Value/Peter Pan consumer? Wondering whether your jar is contaminated? If the product code on your lid starts with 2111, you can get your money back by mailing your lid to ConAgra. Remember - 2111=violent illness.