A recent news dispatch had the rare effect of causing me to rush home to check on my family.
The Food and Drug Administration recently advised consumers not to eat two popular brands of peanut butter. The spreads apparently are behind an outbreak of Salmonella Tennessee — a name that mildly offends me as one whose closest relatives reside in the Volunteer State.
It was reported this week that the tainted peanut butter might be responsible for at least two deaths.
The role of peanut butter is so critically important at my house, any sickness associated with it threatens to disrupt mealtime routines indefinitely.
Their mother is a marvelous cook, but when I'm charged with feeding our three daughters, I rely heavily on three basic food groups: Cheerios, Beefaroni and peanut butter.
I personally never liked Cheerios. It's quite bland but leaves a strange aftertaste.
The modern child, however, has a cultivated liking for Cheerios. It's because parents, at some point during the 1970s, began using the plain, dry cereal to introduce solid food.
Green beans would work, too, but the packaging is less convenient.
I don't go for Beefaroni either, but almost any kid, given the opportunity, will eat it daily. That's why Chef Boyardee is wearing such a broad smile on every can.
Still, only peanut butter has the power to replace virtually any other food on a child's menu at any given time.
Don't want cereal, oatmeal or eggs for breakfast? How about peanut butter toast?
Don't like the capellini pomodoro we're having for supper? How about Beefaroni for you?
No? Well, what about a peanut butter sandwich?
Great!
The last thing we need at our home is a kid getting sick on peanut butter. A previous untimely regurgitation — of which peanut butter was merely an innocent byproduct — caused one of the twins to swear off the miraculous spread for nearly a year.
I never want to go through that again, which is why I was so concerned about this recent Salmonella incident.
The FDA, according to a news release, advises no consumption of Peter Pan peanut butter purchased since May 2006, or Great Value peanut butter purchased since May 2006 with product codes beginning with the numbers 2111.
Anyone in possession of those products should destroy them, according to ConAgra, the company that manufactures the spreads.
A quick inventory revealed that our current stock of peanut butter, which we buy in bulk at the local wholesale distribution center, is not one of the potentially infected brands.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has identified 290 people from 39 states who have been sickened by the Salmonella Tennessee (Why not Mississippi or Alabama?) peanut butter contamination.
I feel for those people. But for the grace of God — and a choosy mother — go we.
