Question For Older Abers - Peanuts

[barry1010]

I read a comment from on older person blaming vaccines for peanut allergies. No child was allergic to peanuts when she was at school.

I'm trying to remember if peanuts were popular snacks in the 40s and 50s, and if peanut butter was a thing.

I can remember peanuts sold in their shells (pods?) but I didn't eat them. I didn't have peanut butter either. 

Was it a common ingredient in food?

 

[barry1010]

I would guess they didn't really take off until the mid 60s when they were sold as bar snacks.

[ToraToraTora]

Fun Fact: Peanuts are not nuts.

[barry1010]

I know 😊

[sandyRoe]

You could buy small packets of salted peanuts for a few pennies in the early 60s.

I don't think I ever heard of nut allergies until fairly recently.

[ToraToraTora]

When I was a saucepan no one had an allergy, they were extremely rare. Even today a true allergy is rare. There is a tendency to say "I'm allergic to X" when in fact you mean you don;t like X.

[barry1010]

I'm trying to establish if there were no peanut allergies when I was a child because very few, if any, children ate peanuts.

I do know that nut allergy is a real thing and can have serious consequences 

[DDIL]

Good Morning,

I found this by posing your question on the internet.

Why are peanut allergies becoming more common?

The main theory to explain a rise in allergic disease, including food allergy, is the "hygiene hypothesis" that generally suggests that "clean living" with less farm living and the use of medications to prevent and quickly treat infections leaves our immune system in a state that is more prone to attack harmless ...

 

Rate of Childhood Peanut Allergies More than Tripled Between 1997 ...

[Squitty]

I didnt have ready access to local news then so probably wouldnt have been aware anyway.

In my family of 10 there was no allergy as we had pub peanuts as a treat nearly every Sunday in the late 50's throuh the 60's

All types of nuts for Xmas too - I remember shelling peanuts a lot.

[barry1010]

We had walnuts, brazils, hazelnuts at Christmas. Not peanuts which we called monkey nuts

[sandyRoe]

Peanuts were often eaten around Halloween but I don't think they were a part of the diet for most working people.

[barry1010]

Stick to topic please

[Atheist]

Peanut butter was around in the 50's; I loved it and "Children thrive on it".

I heard recently that exposure to peanuts from a very early age reduces the possibility of an allergy later on. Since peanut allergy became known, I bet that parents are less likely to let tots eat peanuts, resulting in more allergy cases.

[maggiebee]

Called peanuts in their shells "ground nuts" because, I think, they grow underground??  Used to string them together for the birds.  Peanuts are legumes.

[barry1010]

That's right, they aren't nuts and are excellent bird food

[Khandro]

Peanut butter is an American abomination. Peanuts we called monkey nuts, but they're not actually nuts;

Are peanuts and groundnuts the same thing?

'The peanut, also called groundnut, oil nut or monkey nut, is, despite all these names, botanically speaking not a nut, but a legume containing two or three seeds. Like all leguminous plants, the peanut belongs to the family Fabaceae, which includes a number of important agricultural and food plants.'

[Old_Geezer]

Unlikely. Can't stand the taste nor the smell of peanuts so expect to have detected them were they in loads of food.

[Hopkirk]

Lots of 'nuts' aren't nuts.