Sunbutter

LM will turn eleven next week, and ten years ago, we found out the hard way that he is allergic to peanuts. I got a page mid-morning from my father-in-law, and when I called, he told me that my wife was at the hospital with our son. She had a peanut butter bagel for breakfast that morning and gave our son a bite. As soon as it touched his mouth, she says that his whole face started to swell. Fortunately, we have a hospital emergency room about ten minutes from home; on the way there, my wife had time to call her sister and ask her to get word to me and our parents. I was working far enough away that by the time I got to the hospital, LM was almost back to normal. We took him to the pediatrician that afternoon, and the Dr. said that it looked like LM was allergic to peanuts and that we should not give him anything with nuts till we had seen the allergist. Well, my breakfast pretty much every day for years had been a peanut butter and whatever sandwich, and the Dr. said that as long as LM didn't eat any, we should be fine. Well, about a month later he was "helping" my wife load the dishwasher and apparently got hold of the knife I had used for my breakfast. I got to the hospital more quickly that time, and if you've ever seen a boxer with cauliflower ear, you can imagine what his whole head looked like. If not, rent the movie Hitch; while we laughed at Will Smith's allergic reaction, it had the right look. (I do want to say that no matter what it looks like, anaphylactic shock is never a good thing, and if anyone has any trouble breathing at all from an allergic reaction, go to the emergency room.) Needless to say, we got rid of all peanut products in our house, and I was at a loss for what to eat for breakfast for the next nine years.
Then my wife found Sunbutter. (Imagine the sound of an angel chorus in the background when you read that.) These folks are serious about nut safety. They grow their own sunflower seeds and bought all new, never used, machinery to eliminate chances of cross-contamination. Of course, if Sunbutter didn't taste good, it doesn't matter to me how safe it is, I wouldn't eat it. I would never have believed it if anyone had told me that there was something like peanut butter but better, but there is. Before, if I went out of town for work or if the kids were going to spend a few days with the grandparents, as soon as I could, I'd run to the grocery store and get a jar of peanut butter. Now there's no need; there's something better. They also sell roasted sunflower seeds that are good substitutes for nuts in many recipes.