WALDRON— THE PE.ANUT 333 



every year in the manufacture of peanut candies and brittle, both 

 alone and in combination with other nuts, pop corn or puffed rice." 

 During recent years great quanxj,pes of shelled peanuts, especially 

 of the Spanish variety, have been employed for the manufacture of 

 peanut butter. It is used in the preparation of vegetarian meats 

 after a portion of the oil has been pressed from the nuts. This 

 extra oil and that pressed from nuts grown for the purpose is used 

 in thinning peanut butter and is as good for every purpose as is 

 that of the olive. It is one of the sweetest vegetable oils. Articles 

 fried in it keep well lor a longer time than in olive oil and have an 

 agreeable odor and flavor. It is mixed with cotton-seed oil to im- 

 prove it for salad purposes. 



Peanut meal or flour of finely ground nuts is used in confections, 

 cakes and bread making. It is used as a substitute for rice and other 

 flours. Watt reports that in India the unripe nuts are sweeter (as 

 indicated in the author's discussion on the physiology of the fruit) 

 and, being more easily digested, are given women whose milk supply 

 is insufficient for their children. These unripe fruits, when fresh, 

 make an agreeable boiled dish. The very tender leaves of the plant 

 are sometimes cooked with ground coconut- 

 Concerning the food value and change of the peanut from the 

 category of a luxury to that of a more staple item of diet for man, 

 the following is taken from "The Literary Digest" for April 13, 191 8. 

 "The peanut enters into the preparation of most of the vegetable 

 'meat substitutes' long warmly advocated by the vegetarians and 

 now made more conspicuous by the governmental admonition to 

 'eat less meat;' and peanut 'butters' or 'pastes' are widely used. To- 

 day the value of the peanut crop, which is divided between the pro- 

 duction of the promising peanut-oil, peanut-cake for animal fodder 

 and roasted peanuts for human food, has begun to total many mil- 

 lions of dollars. At the University of Wisconsin, Daniels and Lough- 

 lin have demonstrated by feeding-experiments on animals that the 

 peanut can supply adequate protein ... in sufficient pro- 

 portions for growth and reproduction. It can also furnish an abund- 

 ance of the water-soluble vitamin. The food as used in the human 

 dietary does not, however, yield the growth-promoting fat-soluble 

 vitamin, which has come to be recognized as a remarkable consti- 

 tuent of butter fat and egg fat; nor are the inorganic constituents 

 adequate in quality to supply sufficient calcium and certain elements. 

 Of course, the peanut is not used as a sole source of nutrients for 



