An agricultural researcher at North Carolina Agricultural and
Technical State University has developed a simple process to make
allergen-free peanuts.
The new process ? believed to be a first for food science ? could
provide relief to millions of peanut allergy sufferers, and be an enormous
boon to the entire peanut industry.
Doug Speight of the N.C. A&T Office of Outreach and Technology
Transfer said food companies are showing a strong interest in licensing the
process, which does not degrade the taste or quality of treated peanuts, and
might even render them easier to process for use as a food ingredient.

Immunoassays showed 100 percent inactivation of peanut allergens in
whole roasted kernels, and the processed peanuts showed no reaction in tests
on human serums from severely allergic individuals. The inventor, Dr.
Mohamed Ahmedna, is optimizing the process further to remove allergens from
other foods.

?We are extremely pleased that we were able to find such a simple
solution to a vexing problem that has enormous economic and public health
ramifications, both for peanut sensitive individuals, and the food industry
as a whole,? said Ahmedna, associate professor of food science in N.C. A&T?s
School of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences.

Peanut and tree nut allergies are the most severe of all food
allergies, affecting approximately 3 million Americans, and causing 100 ?
150 deaths from anaphylactic shock annually and many more hospitalizations.
In industrialized nations, the allergy has been rapidly increasing in
children, for causes that are not entirely understood. One study showed that
between 1997 and 2002, peanut allergies in children doubled in the United
States. Today, an estimated one percent of all children suffer from the
allergy.

Life can be stressful for families with peanut sensitive children, who
must take extraordinary precautions to prevent contact with even small
traces of peanuts or peanut dust. Tracking, record-keeping and labeling for
peanuts is costly for industry, while schools and other institutions that
serve the public have limited their use due to concerns about public health
and liability.

Ahmedna?s work on peanuts has been funded through a United States
Agency for International Development grant. During the course of the
project, he has developed many other value-added products and processes for
the benefit of the peanut industry worldwide, including a process to remove
a common mold toxin from peanuts, a low-fat, high protein meat substitute,
an infant formula, and antioxidants from red peanut skins. The allergy-free
peanut is the first in a portfolio of peanut innovations to be available for
commercialization from N.C. A&T.

Ahmedna?s process is expected to add value to a crop that is already
economically and nutritionally important. Peanuts are the 12th largest crop
in the United States, with a farm value of close to $1 billion a year. The
Southeast is the main peanut producing region in the nation. Worldwide, the
legume is even more important from an economic development standpoint. In
developing nations, and Africa in particular, the soils and climate are
especially suitable for peanuts.

Peanuts are not only important commercially, but nutritionally as
well. Packed with proteins, healthy fats and a broad array of essential
vitamins and minerals, they are considered an almost complete food. Their
rich flavor, nutrition, fat and protein profile makes for a nearly perfect
food from a food processing standpoint as well.

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From his lab at Tuskeegee University in the early 1900s, the famed
agricultural chemist George Washington Carver discovered approximately 300
food and non-food products from the legume. But despite their versatility,
the allergy issue has caused the peanut to be viewed increasingly with
caution. That might change, thanks to Ahmedna?s work at NC A&T.


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