Beyond borders: How the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut enhances food security worldwide

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Emily Davenport: 0:01

Welcome to Cultivating Curiosity, where we get down and dirty with the experts on all the ways science and agriculture touch our lives from what we eat to how we live. I'm Emily Davenport.

Jordan Powers: 0:12

And I'm Jordan Powers. And we're from the University of Georgia's College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences.

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Jordan Powers: 0:21

We're here today with Dave Hoisington, director of the Feed the Future Innovation Lab for Peanut, funded by the United States Agency for International Development or USAID. Dave, thanks for joining us today.

Dave Hoisington: 0:33

Thank you. It's great to be with you and talk a little bit about peanuts.

Jordan Powers: 0:36

Absolutely! We were already having a little off-recording conversation about peanuts and already very excited for our topics today. But before we really get into things, tell us a bit about your background. Tell us your peanut love story, how'd you get involved in peanut research?

Dave Hoisington: 0:51

So I was born and raised in Houston, Texas, did my undergraduate work at Colorado State in Fort Collins, Colorado, in Plant Sciences, and then went on and did a PhD also in Plant Biology at the Washington University in St. Louis. After that, I decided that I had a really strong interest in genetics of plants. And so I had the opportunity to do a postdoc at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri, and then went on to be a research professor there. And then after that took a really sharp turn in my career and ended up moving to Mexico, where I started working on corn and wheat at an international research center just outside of Mexico City and stayed there for almost 16 years. When I had the opportunity then to move to India to work at another international research center on a whole different other set of of important food security crops, things like sorghum, millets, chickpeas, or as we call them here, garbanzo beans, pigeon peas, and peanuts, or ground nuts, as they are called in many countries around the world. And that's where I really became much more acquainted with a lot of the legumes, like peanuts. And so I ended up working there for almost nine years as their research director, or really running the research for the institute, both in Asia and in Africa, and really began to get a really good understanding of the importance that those crops play in global food security, and in much of that part of the world. At that time, it was kind of time to move back somewhere and a position here at the University of Georgia opened up to find a new director for, at the time it was called the peanut CCRSP, or the Cooperative Collaborative Research Support Program that USAID was funding here. And so I was able to apply and obviously was asked to join, and been here ever since and over the last almost 10 years now really became much more aware of the importance of peanuts, how important they are in the daily diets and around the world.

Jordan Powers: 2:47

Talk about an international impact. Wow.

Emily Davenport: 2:50

Yeah, that's quite a journey. So you mentioned that global food security is a big part of your work. Can you tell us about how research is part of the solution? And why are peanuts important in particular?

Dave Hoisington: 3:05

Thinking about global food security, you need to think about the fact that right now, the world population is about 8 billion people. Projections are not certain, of course, but most people believe that there's going to be around 10 billion people just in the next 30 years, by 2050. About 800 million of those people are malnourished, do not get enough food to eat every day. We were making some pretty good head roads, we had that figure down to almost 600 to 650 million people just a few years ago. But obviously, the COVID pandemic made a big hit on our ability to feed the world, as well as a lot of the social conflicts and the unrest that are going on around the world now. And so that's slowly unfortunately been creeping back up, whether it's going to stable off and go back down, only time will tell. But food security is really a critical component to keeping a secure world. Peanuts really play an important role in trying to address that food security. And in some ways, we kind of feel like they're magical in many ways. One, they're very nutritious and healthy. We know that from research that's been done over many years, that they reduce cholesterol. So an important component of reducing heart disease can reduce diabetes, they can reduce weight gain. Having some peanuts before a meal will reduce how much food you actually take in during that meal. And probably what's quite an interesting nowadays is that they've been shown to improve brain function, and not only improve brain function, particularly in young children, but they can decrease the reduction of brain function in older adults. So Alzheimer's disease may be one component that they could address this through consumption of peanuts. One nice thing about peanuts is it only takes a handful a day to have those effects. So we're not talking about consuming lots of peanuts, lots of peanut products. And the other thing is, it doesn't really matter how you consume those peanuts. So you can have them as a peanut butter sandwich, you can eat just a handful of roasted peanuts, you can have them in a candy bar. All those effects can be achieved simply by consuming peanuts almost daily. The other interesting part about peanuts and food security really is that the plant itself is really good at growing in very poor soils. Unlike most crops, that you have to produce a lot of water, you have to irrigate them, you have to fertilize them. Peanuts actually can be grown in, in very poor soils. And so they don't require a lot of inputs, which is one reason you see them growing in many countries around the world. It's something that we kind of call climate resilient. So we know the climate is changing, there's more water, less water, more rainfall, hotter temperatures, colder temperatures, peanut is a plant that actually can grow in a wide range of conditions and respond quite well. In fact, in many countries where we work, peanuts will produce a crop every year, whereas other crops like corn, wheat, rice, will fail. So it's a very important crop for local food security for those farmers and households trying to grow them. And finally, it's a multipurpose crop. We only think of it as the peanuts that we like to eat. But you can actually take the stems and the leaves and feed them to cattle. So they're important part of the livestock food. You can use oil for burning, it was the original diesel fuel, so you can actually use it as a fuel. And so it's really an important crop for many different ways, including as a bank account, we think of putting money into a bank, and then taking it out when we need it. But in the countries that we work with, and the households and farmers that we work with, they actually store their peanuts. And then when they have a problem like a hole in the roof or children that needs to pay school fees, or they need to fix something or they need to buy something in an emergency, they can sell some of those peanuts. And so they don't really have a bank account with money, but they have a bank account with peanuts, and they use that as a cash crop. It's quite important in the overall economy and running of the household. So because of all of those components put together, it's really an important aspect, or one of the solutions for global food security around the world.

Jordan Powers: 7:22

Wow, have never thought about it in that light. As you're talking about the nutritional benefits of peanuts, of which there are many more than I ever realized, how are researchers taking advantage of these benefits to address food security and benefit consumers?

Dave Hoisington: 7:38

So while peanuts are really nutritious and healthy, and have a lot of benefits in terms of being able to grow very well under under very poor conditions, and one might consider them a superfood, there is still a lot of research that's needed to improve them, particularly to add traits into the varieties that make them even more tolerant to poor conditions around the world. We're learning more and more about the genes in peanuts that make them nutritious and make them healthy. And we want to make sure that the varieties that are out there being grown by farmers, irrespective of where they are in the world, that they're as nutritious and healthy as possible. And so the research really is focused on making sure that those varieties of peanuts that are being grown and are made available to farmers really have all of these characteristics built into them. Because that's the best way for farmers to benefit from growing that crop. Reduces their dependency on other inputs, being able to have access to irrigation, which is generally lacking in most countries that we work in, but as well, inputs like fertilizer or chemicals to keep pests at bay. And so all the research really is looking at how do we actually make that crop as nutritious and productive as possible.

Emily Davenport: 8:52

Okay, so we've talked a lot about peanuts, but I would love to talk a little bit more about the fact that they're not really a nut, and that they're actually a legume, but then you mentioned that a lot of countries call them ground nuts. So can you tell us more about

Jordan Powers: 9:09

Demystify!

Emily Davenport: 9:10

What are they?

Dave Hoisington: 9:15

Yeah, I mean, peanut is kind of an unusual or, as we like to call it, unique crop in that regard. You know, if you've ever seen peanuts growing, and even though a lot of people eat peanuts all the time, they've never seen a peanut plant. So they don't even know what it looks like. But if you've ever had the chance to see it, typically go down to southern Georgia where there's a lot of peanuts growing this time of year, you'll notice that the flowers are all up at the top like most plants, you see nice little yellow flowers on the peanut plants. But what's kind of unique is that when those flowers are pollinated, they actually turn and head towards the ground and they grow underground and mature into the peanut that we know in that little pod that you can buy in the store if you buy them in shell. And so that's one reason why in a lot of parts of the world, they are called ground nuts. Because they're nuts. They look like a nut, you crack them open like a nut, the seed kind of looks like maybe the inside of a seed of a nut. But they're growing underground. But I guess when they came here, they looked more like a pea, which was a very common legume here in the US. And so they got the name peanut because again, they look like the pea, but they're in a shell like a nut, you crack them open, and it kind of tastes like a nut. More like a nut than you would think of if you're eating a bean. So kind of an interesting crop from the way that they are grown, where you find them. They are a legume, so they're not in the family of tree nuts, like walnuts or pecans. So they're much more like a bean or a pea. And that's a very important aspect because legumes fix nitrogen from the atmosphere, so they have the ability of of taking that nitrogen out of the atmosphere fixing it in bacteria that live on their roots and then make that nitrogen available to themselves to grow. So they require less nitrogen fertilizer, but they can also if you incorporate that back in the soil produce leave nitrogen in the soil for a subsequent crop like corn or wheat. So it's a very important component in soil fertility and making sure that we have the right nutrients for future crops.

Jordan Powers: 11:33

I wish listeners could see the look Emily and I just gave each other. I thought I was, like, ahead of the game in knowing that they grew underground, but then the flower turning and, what?!

Emily Davenport: 11:43

I didn't know that part. Like, wait the flour goes underground? What?

Jordan Powers: 11:47

I have a whole new appreciation.

Emily Davenport: 11:49

I was imagining like a potato where it just grew off like a root but it's not a root, but wow, very cool.

Jordan Powers: 11:57

My mind's blown.

Emily Davenport: 11:58

Does their being a legume, is that part of what makes them so nutritious versus maybe being a nut? Or their nitrogen fixing abilities help with their nutritional benefits at all?

Dave Hoisington: 12:09

The nitrogen fixing is more to allow them to grow without inputs, like fertilizers and subsequent crops really doesn't have a major effect on the quality of the nut per se. The nut I think comes more because of the hard shell and the way you crack it open as opposed to a nutritious or compositional comparison to a regular tree nut. Although peanuts are good in that they have high oil content and high protein that's highly digestible. Peanut oil is basically equivalent to olive oil has a high, very high temperature point. So you can heat it up extremely high when you fry foods. A lot of Chinese cooking is done in peanut oil, because you can fry it extremely hot with without having it be destroyed as a cooking oil. So that combination of good quality protein and good quality oil, along with many of the other aspects of the of the nut itself makes it extremely important. And many legumes like peas and beans are like that. They have a very good composition.

Jordan Powers: 13:17

We sometimes just get too excited and have 15,000 additional questions.

Emily Davenport: 13:20

Yeah, like,"wait!"

Jordan Powers: 13:21

Hold on, there's more questions! Moving away from the peanuts, specifically, and back to the Peanut Innovation Lab, as we often call it for short. We know that the Peanut Innovation Lab just received $15 million in funding from USAID for another five years of research. First of all, congratulations. What an amazing thing. What does the additional funding mean for the Peanut Innovation Lab?

Dave Hoisington: 13:44

Well, thank you for the congratulations. And of course we're very appreciative of USAID for approving another five years for the Peanut Innovation Lab here at UGA. The innovation labs that USAID support are part of the US government's Feed the Future global food security strategy, which really is all about working together with partner countries to help improve their ag systems and their ag sectors in those countries, really to break this vicious cycle of food insecurity, really to help people feed themselves. We know we can't feed the world by just handing out food to everyone. So that strategy really works towards helping people in developing worlds in particular, to become more food secure for themselves. Part of that strategy is through 20 innovation labs that USAID supports that are partnerships between US universities and partners here in the US and abroad in specific countries. University of Georgia has been really fortunate and and proud of the fact that USAID has always had its peanut research coordinated and led by the university here, since its inception in the early 1980s. So we're in our third or fourth or fifth incarnation of those five-year funding phases. And I think it's a good recognition and credit to the peanut expertise that's not only here at UGA, but the importance that peanut plays in the state of Georgia. And that's one reason USAID continues to provide the funding for the work that we do. So we're called an Innovation Lab. And I get calls all the time from people that want to come see my lab. Unfortunately, it's not a physical lab, in the sense of a scientific lab, where you'll see scientists working at the bench and all of that. The best way to picture it is we have a set of offices in the Hoke-Smith building on the UGA campus where myself and my management team sit, and we basically manage a series of projects that are partnerships between US universities, some in the US government with USDA, some in some private sector with partners overseas. And these research projects work collectively with some of our key countries, primarily in Africa. We work for example, in West Africa, in Senegal and in Ghana, we work in east and southern Africa, in Uganda and Malawi, as primary countries, but we have operations in many other countries in Africa, where peanuts are very important part of their food system. And these partnerships really are research working on new varieties, working on better agricultural or agronomy packages that help farmers grow these varieties better or higher yields. And then we also look at many of the other post-harvest processes of how to make sure that that harvest is maintained as high quality can then be turned into food, and other products that then can help address food insecurity in these countries. We also look at various components of gender. In many countries around the world, and particularly in the developing countries, peanut is kind of considered a woman's crop. It's not a very commercial crop, like we would think of it here in the state of Georgia or in the United States. It's usually grown in very small plots of land, maybe less than one to two acres of land in many countries. It's often grown close to the home, because it's a dependable crop and it's very healthy and nutritious. And most people in Africa in particular, recognize that. So the women tend to grow it, we have a strong focus on looking at that gender component to ground nut or peanut production in these countries to try to understand how we make sure that the innovations that we're producing really can be used most appropriately and effectively by women to increase their production that they will be able to achieve equitable benefit in that production. Because then they can make sure that that crop can benefit their families and their households most effectively. So in essence, the Innovation Lab is our effort to coordinate all of this effort that's going on to really address food security in our target countries.

Jordan Powers: 18:09

Incredible work. And we're fortunate to be housed in the same building here on UGA's campus. And right when I started, the first time I came up to the second floor, I was like, there's a lab in our building? Until I learned more about the work that y'all were doing, I'm like that makes a lot more sense.

Emily Davenport: 18:24

So much more sense.

Dave Hoisington: 18:26

Yeah, you would have to go down to Tifton, to see many of the partnerships that we work with down there on peanut research in the fields. Or you can go over to the wild peanut lab here on the campus that really is looking at how we cross wild species of peanuts to produce new peanut varieties, and really tap the genetics of these wild species. And we work closely with them because that diversity is extremely important to be able to use for our work in Africa and here in the U.S.

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Emily Davenport: 18:57

We'll add a link to the wild peanut lab's website in the show notes for you so you can check out their research.

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Jordan Powers: 19:03

Well, a sneak peek to 2024. We do have plans to travel the Tifton to talk some peanuts, but we might have to add some more things to our itinerary.

Emily Davenport: 19:11

Yeah, there's so much cool stuff being done in the wild peanut lab that's very interesting.

Jordan Powers: 19:16

This might be an impossible question to answer. But tell us about a typical day within the Peanut Innovation Lab. Is there such a thing?

Dave Hoisington: 19:27

Well, within the work that we do here in Hoke-Smith, making sure that all the projects are working well, we have a little over 20 different research projects that are ongoing around the world. We have over 100 scientists and students working under those projects in 12 universities, institutions here in the US. We have 12 countries in Africa that we work with, probably over 20 to 25 institutions across those countries. So a very diverse set of partnerships that we manage. So a lot of that is staying in contact, making sure that progress is being made, trying to identify new opportunities, helping solve their problems so that they can continue to move forward with the research. And so it's a lot of coordination. We know how to use Zoom extremely well. The pandemic didn't really affect our work, like it did a lot of work. Because we were already using virtual communications a lot to stay in touch. We did learn that we didn't have to fly all the time to have some of those communications, although it's still nice to be there in person. We also do a lot of discussions ourselves as to what else we could be doing, where would be some new ideas. The nice thing is, it's not a program that we define in year one. And then we wait three or four years and say, did we have results? We're continuing to modify, innovate, look for new opportunities. Science is always evolving new, new options for us. And so we try to figure out how can we take advantage of that. That's our goal is to make sure that the farmers who we're really working for have the best science put towards their problems,

Jordan Powers: 21:12

We can kind of see being in the same space that traveling and the back and forth, and I believe I actually when I started emailing you to set up this conversation, I got an out-of-office that said, Do you want to send this during their regular working hours that begin at 2am? And I said, oh, boy!

Dave Hoisington: 21:27

That's probably one of the challenges is that when you work around the world, they're usually working while you're trying to sleep. So we tend to have very early or very late meetings sometimes. But we also get the opportunity and try to take advantage whenever we can to travel to this. I mean, Zoom is good. It's nice to see people and talk to them. But it's even better to be there on the ground, to go out to the fields, to talk to farmers, to talk to the households, talk to the scientists, the students in those countries to really understand and help them solve their problems. So a lot of travel is involved to these different countries. But that's something that I've been doing almost my entire career since I left the U.S.

Jordan Powers: 22:07

Hearing your background, it's probably very familiar ground for you.

Emily Davenport: 22:10

Yeah, definitely. Well, speaking of traveling and the work you're doing in Africa, how does that research apply to peanuts in the United States?

Dave Hoisington: 22:22

We're focused a lot on working in Africa, because as I said, we're looking at increased world population, about 15% of the world's population, or about little over 1.2 billion people are in Africa. Now as we look towards the future as we go towards 10 billion, whereas most continents, countries are maintaining their percentage, Africa is actually going to grow, and it is projected to double. So we're going to go from one to over 2 billion people in Africa. About 800 million people around the world are malnourished, and over 60% of that is in Africa and expected to grow. So that's one reason why a lot of the world, USAID in particular, but many countries around the world are really focused on that continent and trying to help them improve their ability to feed themselves. The other interesting thing about Africa is the average age in Africa is 18 years of age. So it's a very young continent, which means that 40% or more of the population is under the age of 15. And as we look towards the future, of course, as it doubles its population, that's not from people moving in, that's from childbirth. And so it's going to get younger and younger. And of course, feeding young people is probably one of the most critical things to do when they're in those critical ages of trying to learn and be healthy, we need good nourishment. So that's a pretty critical component for why we want to work in Africa and the US government wants to support food security and improve food production in that continent. And of course, peanuts, to me and to hopefully many people around the world is an important crop in that strategy. Now, the nice thing about the Innovation Lab, though, is it has benefits here in the U.S., tremendous benefits. The scientists that we work with all want to work with us and be part of the Innovation Lab, not only because they feel a kind of a commitment and obligation to help feed the world, but we know that the climate is changing. There are important changes in temperature and rainfall patterns. Some of those are happening right today in the US, you know, where every every year is different here in the state of Georgia. But many of those climates, including future climates, exist already in Africa. And peanuts are being grown there. And so they can test ideas. They can look at how peanuts respond to different rainfall patterns, different temperatures, even sometimes different diseases that don't exist yet here in the U.S., but if climate change continues the way it's projected to could. And that gives them better ideas to expand in their ability to study those plants, those production practices, under those environmental conditions that are gonna be so important without having to try to do that here and in sometimes artificial conditions. A really, I think, neat example that we've just recently completed and are still working on to improve comes from diseases. Many of the diseases that affect peanuts here also exist in Africa. So that's good, we can work together on solutions for those. But there is a very devastating disease called groundnut rosette disease that exists only in Africa. It's a virus disease that's transmitted by aphids. And so far, it's only found on the continent of Africa. But we know from research we've done and others have done that almost all the varieties that are grown in United States are extremely susceptible to that disease, and would not survive. So it's one reason we generally can't take varieties from the US and just take them to Africa. We have to develop our own varieties there, because they need that resistance to that disease. So they can withstand that, as well as many other factors that are particular for the continent. What we've been able to do is take advantage of some work that actually was coordinated here by UGA, and supported by the U.S. peanut industry to sequence the peanut genome. So several years ago, the industry got together, scientists here at UGA led the effort on a global partnership that was able to successfully sequence the cultivated peanuts. So we now know all the sequences of the of the DNA in the genome of of cultivated peanut. By using that and combining the diversity of the peanuts that we see in Africa that have the resistance to the disease, and don't, we were able to identify the genes that are responsible for that resistance. And because of that, now, we can actually help the US peanut industry introduce that resistance into their varieties here to make sure that if for whatever reason that disease became a problem, or diseases similar to it became a problem in here, we would have resistance. So that's a really, to us, a very good example of why we want to work in more of a global environment to take advantage of diseases and other pressures that we don't have here. So scientists don't have to leave the state to do that research, they can send them abroad. And we can find solutions to problems that are probably going to hit us here at home and be ready and be prepared. That's what reading and science is all about.

Jordan Powers: 27:29

What an opportunity to help and make change on a global scale, but then also help right here at home. My mind is blown by this partnership and and the way that it works and the way that it benefits so many people around the world. I have to go on a lighter note, because I will admit my tummy is rumbling and talking about peanuts for the last little bit here. So now I have to know, what's your favorite way to eat a peanut, Dave?

Dave Hoisington: 27:57

I would have to say a peanut butter sandwich. I grew up eating peanut butter sandwiches when I was a kid. I still enjoy a good peanut butter sandwich. I've even come to appreciate fried peanut butter sandwiches.

Emily Davenport: 28:09

Ohh.

Dave Hoisington: 28:11

I didn't know about until I moved to the state of Georgia.

Jordan Powers: 28:13

Sounds like a very Georgian thing.

Emily Davenport: 28:15

It does. I have not yet had one of those.

Jordan Powers: 28:19

So no jelly, straight peanut butter.

Dave Hoisington: 28:21

Just straight peanut butter is fine with me.

Emily Davenport: 28:23

I like it.

Jordan Powers: 28:24

Solid choice.

Emily Davenport: 28:25

Yeah.

Dave Hoisington: 28:25

What many people don't understand or don't don't appreciate is that in many countries, and in Africa, in particular, peanuts are consumed as part of the diet every day in many different forms that we don't appreciate or even know about. Peanut soups, peanut sauces. Roasted peanuts are pretty common. Peanut butter is not that common in Africa, it's beginning to grow as an important food because they as well understand children need something to take to school. And it's kind of hard to find something, they don't have refrigeration, anything like that they don't have a microwave in the school. And so a peanut butter sandwich is pretty good. It's healthy, it's got a long shelf life. So you can just take a jar of peanut butter, make a sandwich, the child can take it to school and eat it and because of the health benefits, then they can begin to see really an improvement in that child education. In fact, we just completed a study under this previous five-year phase in northern Ghana, where we had a little over 1000 school children in the elementary school in six different villages eating a peanut based meal of kind of peanut butter, slightly fortified. And we fed that to them every day during their 9-month school year. And what we found in that nine months is that they actually improve their learning ability significantly by just consuming peanuts as compared to those students who weren't fed the same peanut-based food. But what was also interesting is that all the teachers said, but the kids are much more attentive. They stayed awake, they weren't hungry, and they also came to school, and even the mothers in the villages were appreciative of the project because oftentimes what would happen is children, one, wouldn't want to go to school, not just because they don't want to go to school, but why they're hungry just going to go. Or they would go and they would get a normal bowl of porridge as their school meal, they eat it, but then they were still hungry, and they just go back home and they'd say, well, now I'm hungry, when am I going to get to eat? But yet, when you had a very good, nutritious meal that they enjoyed eating, they would go to school, they would be attentive, and they actually were able to learn better. So a very important component of just daily life in many of these villages, and in schools and towns and communities in Africa.

Jordan Powers: 30:37

Absolutely. The power of the peanut.

Emily Davenport: 30:39

Very much so, yeah.

Dave Hoisington: 30:41

Powerful peanut.

Emily Davenport: 30:42

It is very powerful, a little legume.

Jordan Powers: 30:45

Little legume. So much power, though.

Emily Davenport: 30:48

I think I've heard something about a peanut drink that was developed by a former student. Is that right? Or can you tell us more about that?

Dave Hoisington: 30:56

Yes, there's been several attempts to develop a peanut drink or even a peanut milk, so to speak, some generally not as successful as we might want. We were able to support several years ago, a graduate student and it was actually working at the Griffin Campus in the food science department there. He was from Malawi. And his goal was to develop a peanut drink that would be made out of local ingredients that you would find in Malawi, that would basically provide a significant portion of their nutritional needs for a day. So over the four years that he was here, he completed his PhD a number of years ago, he started out by doing a survey in the country where he found that when you kind of equated what would be a nutritious drink, most people thought of milk. So if you didn't think of milk, you would think of kind of a soft drink, which was not considered that nutritious. It might be something you would like to drink, but it wouldn't be nutritious. So what he actually did was then decided that he needed to combine milk and peanuts together to kind of create that beverage. So we worked on various formulations, developed a very decent formulation that is quite good. It has basically roasted peanuts as a base. So it's a combination of peanut butter with milk, extremely nutritious. He's now back in Malawi, at one of the national universities, they're working with us still to try to figure out how we might move that forward. But yes, peanuts can be used as a drink as well. Some people can actually just crush the peanuts themselves and kind of press it and will also make a bit of a drink as well. Roasting it usually improves the flavor a little bit. Raw peanuts are a unique flavor. It's an interesting crop in that too, that it really changes significantly if you've ever eaten a raw peanut versus a roasted peanut, there's a significant change in the way it tastes.

Jordan Powers: 32:47

I guess I never thought about that with peanuts, because with things like cashews, you know, my pantry has raw cashews and roasted cashews. And I never thought about that with peanuts, that that's one that you get salted or not salted or lightly salted, or all the flavorings but not really raw peanuts is something that you see frequently available or consumed. I do have one additional question about peanut allergies. I know I said before we started recording my household consumes much higher than the American average for peanut butter, and that was one of my husband's concerns when we started a family was what if our children are allergic to peanuts? Because it would be very devastating with how much we consume personally. And we hear a lot about peanut allergies, especially in the US. Is this something that your team sees a lot in your research, especially internationally? Or is there a little bit of a difference when you're working overseas in some of these countries?

Dave Hoisington: 33:38

So in general, most of the countries that we work with do not have any problems with peanut allergies. In fact, in general, they'll have very few allergies at all to many of the food products that we have allergies to here in the US or in the developed world. The exact reason why isn't entirely clear, there are several probable reasons. One is in most countries, children are exposed to many things very early on in life. It's not maybe quite as a sanitized, highly processed food environment like we have here in the US in particular, where everything has to be extremely clean, extremely processed, and therefore you don't get exposed to many of these other allergens that you really should be so that you prepared. Whereas in Africa, children are still playing outside very early on. They're eating peanuts from the time they're born. And so you don't see those high levels of allergies. Every once in a while you will meet someone who says yeah, I have a bit of an allergy, but it doesn't stop me eating peanuts. I just know how many that I can eat before I need to be kind of careful. There's also been, of course, some change in some of the recommendations in when you should feed children or infants potential allergens like milk or eggs or peanuts or nuts. And so the original earlier recommendations were to wait, everybody was worried that there might be reactions to those. Now the recommendations is to start very early on. And if you are a family that doesn't have a lot of allergens, allergenicities to food, probably safe to give them, you know, an infant, some peanut butter, as soon as you are comfortable with that, and see how they react. Probably will be no problem. If of course, you have cases where you know that there are potential problems with certain food products and categories, then maybe you want to do it a little bit more carefully or in a doctor's office. But I think the main message is try it as you know, expose children to these food products as early as possible. And then that will build up their ability to tolerate them later on in life. I think the industry has seen a significant decrease in the levels of allergies to peanuts in the last several years. And in fact, many schools even nowadays are beginning to realize, again, the importance of having peanuts as part of their food offerings in the schools. So you're beginning to see some of that come back up with the realization that it's a balance of exposure, and then recognizing when there is a problem.

Jordan Powers: 36:12

Absolutely, addressing it when there's an issue, but yeah.

Emily Davenport: 36:16

Well, we have covered a whole range of things, what have we missed?

Dave Hoisington: 36:21

it's been important to point out how important peanuts are. It's an interesting crop that has been around for a long time. Almost everyone in the world has probably consumed it at one point or another, in some form or another. But we often see that people don't understand just like when we were discussing many of the aspects of peanuts, they don't understand how important that crop is. And that it can be an important part of the economy, of agricultural growth in in any country, but also in nourishing people. And so, you know, to me, it's pointing out that it's almost a magical crop that we need to continue to recognize and hopefully promote in overall food security around the world.

Jordan Powers: 37:04

Absolutely. Whether it's enjoying a peanut butter sandwich or addressing food security. I don't know many crops that we could talk about that has quite that range.

Emily Davenport: 37:13

Yeah.

Jordan Powers: 37:13

So Dave, thank you for joining us today. It has been wonderful to talk about food that is admittedly one of my favorites, but learn so many new things about it. And the work that your team is doing is truly changing the world and it's just wonderful to learn more and share this with our audiences. So thanks for joining us.

Dave Hoisington: 37:30

Well, thank you.

Emily Davenport: 37:30

Thank you.

Sound Effect: 37:31

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Emily Davenport: 37:31

Thanks for listening to Cultivating Curiosity, a podcast produced by the UGA College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. A special thanks to Mason McClintock for our music and sound effects. Find more episodes wherever you get your podcasts.