The Wonderful World of Peanut Allergies.

I often wonder - why are there so many people developing them?

I asked myself - are peanut fucked with by the chemical companies (that's CV lingo for - are peanuts genetically modified?)

Turns out they aren't; and yet they are more or less GMO.

How so - you may ask?

http://blogs.prevention.com/inspired-bites/2013/11/25/hidden-truth-about-peanuts/ 

It’s interesting to note that the peanut is actually a bean. Its shape is similar to a soybean, and it is not a nut at all.  It is part of the legume family but different to the soybean and other beans which grow in pods on vines.  The peanut has its pod in the ground.

In other words, it’s buried in the soil.  It has a soft skin that protects it (not a hard shell like a walnut).  Put anything in that soil and you can imagine how it gets absorbed into the peanut.  Put genetically engineered seeds in that soil and you get soil that is saturated with a controversial chemical, glyphosate, linked to everything from cancer to infertility.

Peanut crops are often rotated with cotton crops, and now that cotton has been genetically engineered to withstand increasing doses of crop chemicals, it’s anyone’s guess as to just how polluted that soil has become.

But it’s not a guess to the farmers.

According to farmers, “Peanuts are raised in the part of our country where peanuts are a rotation crop with cotton. Most of the cotton is glyphosate tolerant and receives numerous glyphosate applications per year. Glyphosate severely damages the beneficial microorganisms in the soil. This leads to an increase in the population of opportunistic or bad organisms in the soil. The bad organisms cause an increase in the number of diseases that will adversely effect the peanut crop. This leads to an increased use of insecticides and fungicides on the peanut crop. It is common to see a conventional peanut crop sprayed with some type of pesticide every 8-10 days during the growing season.”