Mixed Nuts: The Peanut Conspiracy

No, I’m not talking about the men’s locker room at The Olympics.
I’m not talking about the mediocre 1994 Steve Martin comedy of the same name.
I’m talking about this:

I know, I know. it looks like an innocent photograph, but if you look closer you will notice that there are very few beans in the mix. In truth, if you ordered that can of Mixed nuts, there would be at least 50% beans (legumes). That’s right there would be at least 50% of those fiendish little poisonous time bombs that we all call “peanuts” thrown in with the good stuff.

Today we will examine the history of the Peanut Conspiracy and how it touches our daily lives today. Prepare to be frightened people, because this is some scary stuff.

This all began in the 1800s when some racist European Colonists started selling these beans to the the Africans in the hopes that many of them would die from peanut allergies. Their little plan actually did kill many people, but with medical technology as primitive as it was back then, no one knew the cause.

These “peanuts” were brought over to the US and became a popular crop in the south. Again many people died not only from allergies, but from exposure to toxins in peanuts that were not properly stored.

The possible danger of these “peanuts” was discovered by the inventor George Washington Carver who as we all know ate babies. Mr. Carver hated human life and wanted to destroy it in as insidious a manner as possible. So he distributed a list of recipes using peanuts and created 100 products from peanuts in an attempt to poison as many people as possible in as many ways as he could.

Mr Carver learned of a company called Planter’s Peanuts in Pennsylvania and during one of his trips to that part of the country, he stopped in and spoke to the president of the company, Mr. Amedeo Obici. Exactly how the conversation went is not known, but soon therafter Planters put out their first batch of “mixed nuts”.

Now the place where I hypothesize Mr. Carver’s evil genius comes in is in the ratio of peanut to true nut. In those early batches of “mixed nuts” one would be lucky to find 5% true nuts. It was a special prize if you found a brazil nut in there. A kid that got a Macadamia nut was once elected class president at his high school. His campaign was “Vote Barney. He’s a lucky nut.”

This went on for over half a century. Mixed nuts were completely unregulated. In 1974 one congressman grew particularly perturbed when his lung collapsed after a bad peanut allergy attack. He demanded an investigation into peanut companies. Consumer reports did their own study and found that cans of mixed nuts at the time contained an average of 75% peanuts and often just had two or three varieties of nuts.

On March 15th 1977 the FDA came out with a new standard of identity for mixed nuts. From then on for a can to be labeled “mixed nuts” it had to contain at least four varieties on nuts and be at least 85% full. The label also had to state what percentage of the mixed nuts were peanuts.

This ad was produced as a result. “Special nuts indeed”:

Today that FDA standard still exists. George Washington Carvers wish for the extermination of human kind never did come to pass, but you must still beware of the peanut and Mixed Nuts in general. Even if you buy a can of nuts that claims to be “peanut free” be careful. These nuts are often packaged in the same factory as the peanuts and get a liberal sprinkling of peanut dust.

As a side note, Planters Peanuts is still out there implementing their dastardly plans. They have ramped up their adverising efforts in recent years in an attempt to kill even more people.

Here is an ad designed to appeal to crazy people.

And in their latest ad, Planters tries to seduce the ugly chick demographic.