Loran Smith: Harvest from 1 acre of a Georgia peanut farm is enough for 35,000 PB&J sandwiches

During the harvest season in October, I rode by a farm in south Georgia where the harvesting of peanuts was taking place.  I pulled over and watched the peanut harvester do its thing − digging up the peanuts, shaking them and collecting the popular product in a box container.

It reminded me of the times back on the farm, growing up, when the extracting peanuts from the soil and the shaking of peanuts was done by hand.  There was no mechanical harvester to do the work.  Just as it was with picking cotton, you needed a strong back for the assignment.

At the time, I was on the way to Blakely, the seat of Early County, which claims to be the peanut capital of the world.  However, it is also known for its quail population which enables Blakely to claim to be the quail capital as well.  There is, in fact, a Bob White Avenue in the town and a Quail Motel which just happens to be located on Bob White Avenue.  Not sure if they serve peanuts at Quail Motel, but I wouldn’t be surprised.

After a brief stop by the peanut patch, I thought about heading into Blakley to look for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Staying in a nice guest house, I, instead, reached out to everybody’s friend, Google, and searched for peanut facts.

I learned that the average person eats almost 3,000 peanut butter sandwiches in their lifetime.  Further, I learned that most PB&J aficionados (36%) prefer strawberry jam with their peanut butter.

Think about it.  Those peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are as tasty as you could want when asking for a snack.  Kids taking their lunch to school often have PB&J sandwiches in their lunch box. Workers out there, from brick layers to carpenters to roofers to greenskeepers, do the same.

While Georgia is no longer the leader in peach production, it is the nation’s leader in peanut production, producing 42% of all the peanuts grown in the U. S. That means that there are 650,000 acres of peanuts in our state, which yield 3.3 billion pounds of ground peas, if you want to use the term that ole timers used to describe peanuts.

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There are several health benefits from eating peanuts.  Peanuts are good for your heart; they lower risk of diabetes, reduce inflammation, and help prevent cancer.

Astronaut Alan Sheppard took a peanut with him to the moon and two presidents were peanut farmers.  You likely know about one of them, Jimmy Carter who is still living in Plains in Southwest Georgia.  The other is Thomas Jefferson of Monticello, Virginia.

Some additional interesting peanut facts:

• The furthest a peanut has been thrown was 124.4 feet.

• There are enough peanuts in 1 acre to make 35,000 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

• Every year, Americans eat enough peanut butter to coat the floor of the Grand Canyon.

• In a high-pressure environment, peanut butter can be turned into diamonds.

Do peanut farmers know that?   If they do, why are more of them not producing diamonds.  There has to be a catch in this information; otherwise, there would be a guy in jeans at roadside stand in Plains selling diamonds to all the visitors who travel to Sumter County each year.

I have always been fascinated by the stories of George Washington Carver, who is known as the “grandfather of peanuts.”  What he achieved with his research is remarkable.

Boiled peanuts remain a delicacy in our state.  I never tire of boiled peanuts and have fond memories of stopping by a roadside stand, offering “boil” peanuts for sale.  A guy in overalls dips into a big black wash pot and hands over a container of the best snack available in the early fall when the weather is just right for slowing down and enjoying a tasty snack from the good earth of the Empire State of the South.

This article originally appeared on Augusta Chronicle: Peanuts are amazing and Georgia grows more of them than any other state