The newspapers for some weeks have been giving more or less attention to claims that have been made by certain "professors" and "chemists" as to the wonderful food values of the peanut. Some of them claim that it is a perfect food, and that a person can live indefinitely on the peanut alone. A college professor in Illinois, so the papers say, has gone so far in meeting the challenges against the "goober," as it is called thru the South, as to start in for a three-months' diet on the peanut. The professor claims that he will come forth from the test stronger and in better flesh than when he started in. Another in Illinois has just completed a forty-day diet on peanuts and others in different places are following the same diet for various lengths of time.
Sensible people will not run off after fads. They will not indulge extremes that can only result from unbalanced minds, neither will they jump into things without giving them consideration. Therefore sensible people will certainly not be guilty of making the mistake of trying to depend on any one article of diet. To try to live for a long period on just one article of food is enough to give a sane person dyspepsia just to think of it. God has given infinite variety in this world, and it is plainly His design that man shall properly and lawfully enjoy the multitude of good things bestowed by the Father rather than try to find some one food and confine himself to the monotony of that.
And besides, there can be no disputing the fact that to use the peanut in large quantities is injurious to the system, no matter how some professor may have figured it out in his laboratory. A few years ago some of the scientific men claimed to have discovered that they could make a butter out of peanuts that was not only cheaper than the dairy product, but it was much more wholesome. Thereafter this butter was manufactured and placed on the market, and many people were led to use it. In a little while they began to have trouble with their stomachs, and especially with their kidneys. And this trouble was traced directly to the peanut products that were being eaten by them; for those who discontinued the use of the stuff before permanently undermining their constitutions were soon back to their normal selves again.
We give our readers the foregoing bit of personal experience and observation in regard to the peanut as an article of diet with the suggestion that no one allow any of these statements that are going the rounds of the press to influence them in making the peanut a very large part of their diet, nor that it be used for any prolonged period of time. A few peanuts, if properly prepared, may be harmless, and possibly wholesome, but their extensive and continuous use should be avoided. T.