What's up with Peanuts?

According to the National Peanut Board (yes, apparently one exists), the average American consumes six pounds of peanuts and peanut butter each year.
If that's true, then I probably covered that just during the holiday season alone, since I am peanut butter's #1 fan. I speak highly of any product that can get me to eat celery.

So, it was much to my dismay to find out that since September 8th, at least 486 people have been sickened due to an outbreak of salmonella typhimurium in peanut products.

One may think that it's pretty easy to avoid peanuts until you can be sure it's safe to consume Mr. Planters again. Simply cut back on the PB&Js, right? But when you really think about it- most ice cream, protein bars, snack cakes, and crackers have some form of peanut in their ingredients.

Click here for the FDA's list of recalled products.

The outbreak can be traced back to products manufactured by the Peanut Corporation of America in Blakely, Georgia. Some of the recalled products include: Famous Amos' peanut butter cookies, Wal-Mart's peanut butter fudge, Little Debbie sandwich crackers, Blanto's Peanut Butter Sticks, Meijer's peanut butter cup ice cream, and Austin's cheese and peanut butter sandwich crackers.

Man, I'm really glad those Girl Scout Tagalongs are a-ok!