I have been assured by more than one biologist that it would be
impossible to bring peanut butter to the market today because of the
enormous public health threat posed by aflatoxin contamination. Unlike
pesticides, herbicides and fertilizer, aflatoxin is the entirely
natural metabolite of a naturally occurring fungus which gows on
peanuts. Regulated to a degree on commercially produced peanut
butter, the highest rates of aflatoxin contamination are usually found
in healthfood stores in natural peanut butter ground on site. But there
is in fact no known "safe" level of aflatoxin, which means that
even Skippy and Peter Pan is riddled with cancer causing toxins that
can strike down your primary school student in twenty or thirty or
forty years.
At the very least, peanut butter should
carry a warning label that says "this product may contain up to 5ppm of
aflatoxin by law. There is no accepted safe level of aflatoxin, which
is known to cause liver cancer." That statement would be completely
true and additionally, not the slightest bit misleading. Oddly,
peanut butter carries no such warning label. One wonders
why. Oh, right, wouldn't want to adversely affect peanut
growers...