Continue Eating Peanut Butter, Please

I'm sure you all have read the headlines over the past couple of days that warn, "Do Not Eat Peanut Butter" or "Peanut Butter Recall" or "You Will Die a Slow Painful Death if You Eat Peanut Butter"...

Since my job is basically to promote peanuts and peanut butter, I'm going to tell you that you should keep eating peanut butter - out of the jar.

Yes, there has been a recall on peanut butter products that were used to make cracker snacks. However, peanut butter in jars on your grocer's shelf is very safe and nutritious to eat. In fact, you should all eat some every day, especially if you're Hispanic. It lowers your risk of diabetes, and Hispanics are about six times more likely to have diabetes.

I got this email from the American Peanut Council yesterday. I think it tells you what you need to know:

The FDA and the American Peanut Council are urging consumers to postpone eating products made with peanut butter pending information about which products contain ingredients produced by a plant in Blakely, Georgia. Products from that plant have been linked to salmonella contamination in Minnesota, Georgia and Connecticut. Retail peanut butter brands on grocery shelves are safe and need not be avoided. Consumers should visit www.fda.gov for a list of affected products in the days ahead.

This also gives me a chance to further preach on how the media tends to sensationalize the facts. Some people may argue, "You work for the peanut industry. Of course you're going to say it's O.K. to eat peanut butter."

My answer to them is, "Yes, I do work for the peanut industry, but we don't make a habit out of telling people to eat something that is going to destroy their intestines."

A headline like the one that was on MSNBC yesterday that read "Do Not Eat Peanut Butter" is ridiculous. No, you shouldn't eat the products that are being recalled, but to encourage everyone to give up peanut butter eating all together? It makes me want to buy an ad that says, "MSNBC Doesn't Wash Their Hands After Using the Bathroom" or "MSNBC Eats Roadkill".

No, I don't know if those statements are true for people that work at MSNBC, but they could be damaging to their reputation, just as their headline was to the peanut industry.

My main point here is don't always believe what you read in the headlines. There's always another story behind what's printed. My job used to be centered around writing news stories and headlines. Did they ever teach us in our college journalism classes to sensationalize the news? If they did, I must have been eating peanut butter or something inherently dangerous like that and didn't pick up on that bit of information.