Found a peanut, found a peanut, found a peanut, last night.

I appreciate that there are plenty of kids out there with peanut allergies, and that while the odds of something dire happening to someone with a peanut allergy are slim – most reactions are mild – terrible things can and do happen to those with any food allergy.

A few months ago, a college kid in Massachusetts died when he ate a cookie that had some peanut trace in it. This was a bright kid, who’d always been very cautious, but he’d never had such an extreme reaction. Apparently, all he had to do was let his guard down for a second, and that was it for him.

And I know people who have had near-death reactions to citric acid, to shellfish.

Thank God for epi pens.

Because of all the allergies out there, because even a trace element can apparently kill someone, I’m all in favor of complete product labeling.

But to have to put a peanut warning on a bag of peanuts?

Is this not just a tiny bit over the top?

After all, wouldn’t one expect to find peanuts in a bag of peanuts. Even if they were labeled “monkey nuts".

Now, maybe in the U.S., a bag of monkey nuts would have to come with the peanut warning. After all, even though a monkey nut is nothing but a fully clothed peanut, the term monkey nut is a British-ism. One which I’d never heard.

So, if the monkey nuts were to have been sold in the States, it would have been, I guess, conceivable that someone might know that they have an allergy to a peanut that was out of the shell, yet might never have seen what a peanut in the shell looks like.  Thanks to Mr. Peanut and Skippy, you can go through a pretty peanut-filled life without ever encountering a peanut shell. (Although I will note that Mr. Peanut, himself, always appears in his birthday suit.)

But a monkey nut in the U.K. is a peanut.

And while, just as in the U.S., some Brit peanut-allergee may have never seen peanut avec shell, would it not be reasonable to expect that someone buying a bag of monkey nuts would understand that what’s inside that monkey nut just might be a peanut?

But the Booths supermarket chain recalled bags of monkey nuts “after failing to declare they may contain peanuts.”

The supermarket has removed 300 packets of 350g Whole Hearted Roasted Monkey Nuts from its shelves.

Booths has apologised and warned customers with a peanut allergy not to consume the product.

Booths technical manager Waheed Hassan said: "It is our responsibility as retailers to accurately record allergy advice.

"In this instance, we felt a responsibility to recall the product and issue a notice to our customers who might suffer from a specific peanut allergy." (Info source: BBC.)

I feel truly awful for those who have peanut allergies, or any other food allergy, for that matter. Life voluntarily without peanut butter would be bad enough, but to have to live with the risk that anything you could put in your mouth could kill you?  That would be just terrible. (Or worse, having to live with the risk that anything your child could put in his mouth could kill him.)

But having to label a bag of peanuts as a bag of peanuts?

On the one hand, it’s a bit consoling to know that the U.K. must be just as litigation-happy as the U.S., if Booths felt compelled to withdraw its monkey nuts, inform the authorities, etc. because they failed to state that a bag of monkey nuts contains peanuts.

Is it just me, or is this a little nutty?

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Thanks and a tip of the Mr. Peanut top hat to my sister Trish for sending me this article.