January 24, 2013 - National Peanut Butter Day

nArenyou one of the “average Americans” who eats more than six poundsnof peanut products in a year? (!)
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nDonyou live in the original home of the peanut plant, Paraguay?

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nDonyou live in one of the places in the world where peanut butter isnpopular?

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nOrnare you, perhaps, one of the unlucky few who is allergic to peanuts?

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nYounprobably know that peanuts are not true nuts but are instead “beans”nin the legume family. The peanut plant is unusual because, after itsnflowers are pollinated, the flower stalk gets longer and bends untilnthe ovary touches the ground. Then the stalk keeps growing—pushingnunderneath the soil—and the mature fruit develops inside a podnunderground. This growth of fruit underground is called geocarpy.
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nPeanutsnwere being cultivated in South America more than 7,600 years ago, andnthey were being traded and eaten by the Aztecs about 500 years ago.nEuropean explorers spread the plant worldwide. People in NorthnAmerica didn’t often eat peanut products until the early 1900s, afternGeorge Washington Carver and others developed new uses for peanuts. n

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nPeanutnpaste has been used for centuries, but modern peanut butter dates tonthe late 1880s. A man named Marcellus Edson (NOT Ed-i-son) patented anprocess of milling roasted peanuts between heated surfaces until thenpeanuts became semi-fluid; when the fluid cooled, according to Edson,nit had the consistency of butter, lard, or ointment. Gosh, I’m songlad people decided to call the result peanut butter, and not peanutnlard or peanut ointment!

nDr.nJohn Harvey Kellogg took out a patent for another invention thatncontributed to modern-day peanut butter; perhaps more important wasnthe fact that Kellogg fed peanut butter to his patients at BattlenCreek Sanitarium. Eventually PB & J became one of the mostnpopular sandwiches in North America.

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Celebratenpeanut butter (if you can!)

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nTrynout some peanut butter recipes. If you want, you can eatnpeanut butter all day long. Might I suggest Peanut Butter and JellynPancakes for breakfast, Goldfish Checkerboard Sandwich for lunch,nPeanut Butter-Marinated Spiced Fried Chicken for dinner, and PeanutnButter Cake for dessert?

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Alsonon this date:

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