Peanuts...

Am I the only person alive to not know this?  Peanuts are NOT a nut!!!!!  It’s not a fruit, a seed or a nut - it’s a legume!  I had no idea!

Peanuts form when the pollinated flowers of the peanut plant bend over and insert themselves into the ground, so that the emerging legumes come to maturity down in the dark.  The hulls are papery and fibrous, not hard (as with nuts).  And what you eat - that is, the little seed inside - are about like the seeds inside any other bean, a soy Bean or pinto bean, even like the seeds inside a green bean.

Peanuts aren’t the only ones that are not nuts:  

• Brazil nuts, cashews, pistachios and pine nuts are seeds.
• Macadamia nuts are kernels.
• Almonds are actually the seeds of drupes - that is, related to peach, nectarines and cherries.
• Coconuts are themselves drupes.

Maybe I am the only one that’s NUTS!

Until Monday - Keep thinking veggies and protein!