As every mother knows, there are two basic food groups in the world of the young child: peanut butter, and everything else. So when news broke recently that salmonella-tainted peanut butter was actually sickening and even killing people, that was big news in Mom World. My own family stared at me with initial disbelief when I told them about it right after Mista Barista brought home Scrunch Peanut Butter Crunchy cereal from Shoprite. At first they thought I was kidding. That’s why I always have access to Google from the kitchen table.
Well, enter Kristen Kemp, founder and editor of Montclair Kids and a self-proclaimed suburban helicopter mom, who posted this morning about her obsessive quest for the safest peanut butter in Baristaville. Of course, that had to involve a trip to Whole Foods, where Kemp encountered “Poor young woman at the customer service counter,” henceforth known as PYW.
Me: Is your peanut butter still safe?
Poor young woman at the customer service counter: None of our peanut butter was recalled. None of the stuff in a jar. It’s the same as I told you last week.
Me: But the other peanut butter products will make us barf or die, right?
PYW: Just the granola, nutrition and cereal bars this week. The ones with the vitamin stuff in them. The Larabars and the Luna bars. A bunch of the bars were recalled.
Me: If I grind my own peanut butter there at your machines, will I be safe?
PYW: Hold on.
I waited a long time – 122 seconds total.
PYW: Absolutely. The stuff you grind is safe. We guarantee it.
Love the stopwatch on the PYW! There’s cheaper safe peanut butter, too, Kemp explains. But the only way to really keep your family safe, it seems, is to keep your Google on the kitchen table and check the FDA’s peanut butter recall list obsessively.
Photo by PiccoloNamek on Wikipedia.
Apparently, it was mold in a factory that caused the outbreak. They also had a doc on the news last night who said that salmonella doesn’t really pose a problem for most healthy adults, just children, the elderly and people who are immune compromised.
Not a real big fan of peanut butter (they don’t make the brand I like anymore–Deaf Smith’s) but I like peanuts in the shell.
i’m right there with ya. last week i returned an unopened box of peanut butter pows cereal to whole foods. they seemed to understand that a mother’s piece-of-mind is priceless. but i worry everyday that the all natural wegman’s brand in my refrigerator will end up on the recall list.
And this is exactly the reason why I sneak into Mathilda’s yard to steal her “vegan friendly, organically certified (or was that certifiable?)” peanuts and make my own peanut butter…
Well, that and to see if I can find where she’s growing that other magical plant she must consume copious amounts of.
I know the Peanut Butter from Peanut Butter & Company is NOT part of the recall. If you go to their Blog and read the January 12, 2009 entry written by Lee Zalben you will see that the recall is limited to products made by the Peanut Corporation of America and products sold under the King Nut Brand.
go to http://blog.ilovepeanutbutter.com
By the way, Whole Foods sells almost all of the various products of Peanut Butter & CO.
So glad Whole Foods “guarantees” their peanut butter’s safety. So if someone should fall ill, or worse, from eating the stuff, they’ll gladly refund the $3.99?? What a relief.
I am just happy i had 2 large jars of open tested peanut butter in the house prior to breakout! Toddler minus peanut butter equals tantrum!