School Lunch – The Politics of Reason

As our political commentator J Randolph Fuller is taking a break back on his uncle’s farm in Kentucky for a couple of days helping with fall cleanup duties we are going to divert from our mission
statement and join our guest commentator Carl Denham on the Health Beat.

Jack Rusak butter 3_pp-1 — Carl Denham On the Health Beat

Today we’re going to be talking about peanut butter, a staple in the pantry in the household of every true American Patriot and the favorite lunch for millions of children since well back in the last century.

First a little history.

“Impatience for victory guarantees defeat.”

Louis XIV said that. Something the liberal community needs to take to heart as they try to bring down the sitting president Donald J Trump.

The groundnut as food source likewise has a long history, predating the Roi Soleil by many centuries.

Word has it the Incas and Aztecs were the first to realize the nutritional benefits of the Arachis Hypogaea (or goober) in paste form.

And of course the West Africans were famous for their peanut stews and soups.

I myself frequently used the fat groundnut in my crock pot cookery.
Peanut butter slow cooked with vegetables and blueberries, grains and chicken broth makes quite the tasty dish on a cold Winter’s day.

While we can assume that ancient peoples used a peanut paste akin to peanut butter it really wasn’t known in its modern form until around 1884 if memory serves when it was officially “invented” by a certain Canadian name of
Marcellus Gilmore Edson.

Even then it wasn’t an American tradition, appearing in over 95 percent of American homes, until George Washington Carver and Dr. John Harvey Kellogg ( the Kellogg’s cereal dude ) popularized this nutritional powerhouse as a cheap and tasty source of protein, a welcome substitute for expensive steak and chicken during Hard Economic Times.

Unfortunately this healthy meal has been bastardized over the years.
The modern product is often far from the healthy food that Carver made into a national obsession and today is all too often laced with salt and sugar and various oils and fats of questionable nutritional value.

Fortunately over the last couple decades there has been a move back to basics in food and All Natural peanut butter without salt or sugar or chemicals of dubious safety can be found on just about any grocery store shelf and for a good price too as major manufacturers join smaller outfits tooting on the goober bandwagon.

But there is a caveat to all this good eating.

The problem with All Natural peanut butter is that the oil separates from the “butter” if the jar is left to sit and it is a Royal Bitch to get it back together.

It takes a long time and a mighty lobstering with a spoon or a knife or a fork.
You’ll get your butter you bet but you’ll also get a hell of a mess on the jar, the floor and everywhere else.

But there is a better way.

Get yourself one of these, the peanut butter stirrer.