Peanut Products
The peanut, or Arachis hypogaea, is a member of the legume family commonly called the groundpea or goober. It produces two to four edible subterranean seeds in separate pods on viney plants. Peanuts are made up of a shell, skin, and a kernel. It is composed of 26.2% protein, 48.7% oil, 1.8% water, and 20.6% carbohydrates. They are typically grown in the sandy or friable loamy soil of South America, Africa, Asia, and the southern and western United States.
Introduced by explorers and used by colonial farmers to fatten hogs, the peanut was not cultivated for human consumption until the end of the nineteenth century. This was primarily because it required intense hand labor to harvest and process, and was subject to mold, rat and worm infestation, desiccation, and other storage problems. However, this portable food was used by troops during the United States' Civil war. When the war was over, demand for the legume was high. This demand coupled with improvements in harvesting led to the birth of the peanut industry.
In 1890, a St. Louis doctor created a nutritional and digestible food for patients by crushing peanuts and reducing them to a cream he called peanut butter. In modern times, the peanut has become a worldwide staple--an inexpensive source of protein, minerals, vitamins, fiber, fat, and food energy for undernourished people in Third World countries. Chief importers of peanuts are Canada, Japan, and Europe.
Because of the peanut's versatility and nutritional value, botanist George Washington Carver devoted a major portion of his career to developing peanut products, including lipstick, shampoo, soap, shoe polish, paint, shaving cream, paper, creosote, imitation marble, dye, plastic, wood stain, flour, and cheese substitutes. To bolster peanut cultivation, he published a bulletin, the Peanut Promoter, touting peanut milk, flavoring for ice cream, instant coffee, Worcestershire sauce, and peanut bread.
Today, the peanut, with 50 percent of its weight comprised of fat, produces valuable cooking, salad, and canning oil, and margarine and shortening, as well as pulp for peanut butter. As food, peanuts are eaten raw, boiled, roasted, or salted and fried. Their usual dressing is plain salt or a blend of salt and sugar. They form a major component in confections, including candy bars, cakes, cookies, and other baked goods. By-products of peanuts are used as food additives, animal feed, fertilizer, forage, and conditioner for compacted soil.
In industry, the peanut yields varnish, paint, lubricant, soap, cosmetics, textiles, plastic, wallboard, abrasive, cat litter, absorbent cleaners, abrasives for toothpaste, adhesives, sizing for cloth and paper, waterproof moldings for plastic, firefighting foam, synthetic fibers, propagators of antibiotics, leather dressing, insecticide, furniture polish, and nitroglycerine. In addition, the peanut shells may be compressed into synthetic firelogs or briquettes or rendered for xylose, furfural, cellulose, or mucilage.
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