Peanuts: Peril and Promise

Despite their diminutive scale, peanuts play an outsized role in
American culture. Peanut butter has long been a mainstay of
the American lunchbox, with its sticky, slightly sweet
nuttiness flavoring the memories of generation after generation of
kids. And it’s hard to imagine ballgames without, as the song goes,
peanuts and Cracker Jacks (which, of course, also contain
peanuts). But today, peanuts are the source of both hope and
fear: while there’s been a surprisingly steep rise of peanut
allergies in recent decades that can—though rarely—lead to death,
peanut butter is also the basis of a medical therapy used to
save the lives of millions of children around the world. This
episode, we discover how the humble peanut got to be such a big
deal. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit
podcastchoices.com/adchoices