Revenge of the Peanut Free Table

Well, if you have not heard yet, there seems to be a "minor" problem with peanut based products. Turns out Peanut Corporation of America sells a lot of peanut products to a lot of product customers. If you don't beleive me, head to www.fda.gov and you will actually find a Widget you can install that keeps you updated on all products being recalled. That is a good sign that this is a serious situation. I was eating a protein bar last week and as a I finished it I thought about the peanuts in it and went to the website just to find out that bar was a recalled product. Yikes.

Anyway, I have a parallel thought to this recall. The peanut free table. Anyone with kids in school has heard of this. Its a table that kids can sit at knowing that all food at that table contains no peanut products. Thinking about this, I am positive that there was no peanut-free table when I was a kid. Is this peanut allergy a relatively new thing or were the peanut allergies back in my day more of a closet allergy? Don't get me wrong, kids with this allergy is a serious and potentially deadly thing but how did it get so serious in the last 20 years and why is that table at school so full?

Lets put this all together. If you read ingredients of a lot of packaged products, you will see a disclaimer on most of them saying that this product was processed in a facillity that may have tree-nuts, dairy, or wheat products. This seems to be a generic comments to cover themselves against any lawsuit regardless if they use the ingredients or not. That must make things tough if you are trying to find food for peanut allergy people. This recall stuff could be the ultimate revenge of the peanut-free population.