March is National Peanut Month

March is National Peanut Month. Did you know the peanut is Alabama’s official state legume? There are many interesting facts about peanuts. As listed on www.alpeanuts.com:

• Approximately half of the peanuts grown in the United States are grown within a 100-mile radius of Dothan.

• Alabama has about 900 peanut farmers.

• The National Peanut Festival, the nation’s largest peanut festival, is held each fall in Dothan to honor peanut growers. For more information, call the NPF office at 334-793-4323 or visit www.nationalpeanutfestival.com

• Americans consume 700 million pounds or 3.3 pounds per person, of peanut butter per year. That’s enough to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon.

• There are approximately 810 peanuts in an 18-ounce jar of peanut butter.

• The United States produces four basic varieties of peanuts: Runner, Virginia, Spanish and Valencia. Each type is distinctive in size and flavor. Runners are grown mainly in Alabama, Georgia, Florida, Texas and Oklahoma.

• Brundidge hosts the annual Brundidge Peanut Butter Festival the last Saturday in October. For more information, call 334-735-2385.

• The peanut is unusual because it flowers above the ground but fruits below the ground.

• By law, any product labeled “peanut butter” in the United States must be at least 90 percent peanuts.

• Nearly half of the United States peanut crop is used to make peanut butter.

• In the U.S., annual peanut production – about 1.5 million tons per year – often exceeds the production of beans and peas combined.

• Worldwide, about 2/3 of the crop is processed for peanut oil.

• 20 percent of the world’s peanut production is used in candy.

• Peanut oil accounts for 8 percent of the world’s edible oil production.

• Peanuts are also called goobers, goober peas, pindars, ground nuts, earth nuts, monkey nuts and grass nuts.

• Peanuts are members of the pea family.

• Georgia is the largest producer of peanuts in the U.S., and Alabama is ranked second.

• The first peanuts grown in the United States were grown in Virginia.

• Peanuts are a favorite food for many, but there are many uses for their shells, too! Peanut shells can be found in kitty litter, wallboard, fireplace logs, paper, animal feed and sometimes as fuel for power plants.

• Two peanut farmers have been elected president of the United States: Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter.

• One acre of peanuts will make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches.

DID YOU KNOW?

George Washington Carver, research scientist and inventor at Tuskegee University in Tuskegee, discovered more than 300 uses of peanuts, such as salted peanuts, peanut butter, chocolate-coated peanuts, cooking oil, peanut and popcorn bars, peanut hay meal and laundry soap, to name a few.

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