Peanuts in the News

I’ve got a cartoon on my office window that someone cut out of a newspaper and gave to me a while back. Charlie Brown is sitting on his Dr.’s examination table, scared and with a wiggly line for his mouth, the double lined eyebrows and the squiggle tuft of hair. He is supporting himself with his hands flat on the table, afraid, staring wide eyed into nowhere. His Dr. examines his chart and declares, “You’re Allergic To Peanuts.”

Part funny, part twisted, part scary, very accurate. But as you may know, now it’s worse. Peanuts are making the healthy, the young, the old and the feeble, dangerously ill, and have even killed nine as of today.

Bring in Stewart Parnell, the owner of Peanut Corp. of America, who is reported to repeatedly plead the fifth at every turn. His company basically processes peanuts and then sells them to other manufactures that in turn use them as an ingredient from crackers and ice cream to candy and coffee products. Simple right, no, under his leadership they screwed it up and now we have a serious problem. This guy is what we like to call a “shoe maker” in the kitchen, he has no right to be in the food business.

According to MSN and I quote directly-“The owner of the peanut company at the heart of the massive salmonella recall refused to answer the lawmaker's questions — or any others — Wednesday about the bacteria-tainted products he defiantly told employees to ship to some 50 manufacturers of cookies, crackers and ice cream.”

The congressman Greg Walden, Republican from Oregon, at one point challenged Stewart Parnell, held up a container of his company's products wrapped in crime-scene tape and dared Parnell to eat from the jar. This congressman should get should get a friggin’ medal like a four star general. Parnell, the weasel, of course pleaded the Fifth, because it is important for him to be treated fair. This guy is a joke. Who gave this guy his job in the first place?

He had one product, peanuts, with the responsibility to the public to make sure they were safe at all times, and it’s reported that he told employees to sweep them up off the floors because they “needed to turn them into money”.

I hope this sort of thing really pisses you off, because it should. Food safety is a life or death responsibility, not a “turn the crap on the floor into a profit” business. Our lives are at stake dear friends, so I am calling out the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee congressmen to go old school on Parnell and take a group of elementary school kids and turn him into a living canvas of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, to cut the crust off and brown bag him while they’re at it.