Why Peanuts and Corn are More Contaminated with Fungus than other Mass Produced Foods

Peanuts and corn are two of the primary offenders that are disallowed on the Kaufmann 1 and 2 diets. Many people question why two foods – both staples of the American diet – would be omitted from the Kaufmann 1 Diet. After all, people eat these two foods every day.

Fungus is a ubiquitous organism. It and its spores can be found everywhere, from the the soil, to the air, to likely your own refrigerator. Fungus is a decomposer, and given enough time, it will colonize any sort of organic matter that its spores land upon. Many fungi, under the right conditions and as part of their natural life cycle, will emit substances known as mycotoxins. These are poisons that can have serious effects on human and animal health.

Foods stored in silos are at a greater risk of mycotoxin contamination than other food stuffs; any time food is stored in a silo, the conditions are ripe for fungal proliferation and the subsequent mycotoxin contamination that results from that proliferation. Regulatory agencies monitor the levels of mycotoxins in food, but there is no way to completely get rid of them. Some foods – especially corn and peanuts – have a greater propensity towards fungal contamination. They just happen to be more vulnerable than other kinds of foods to fungal colonization. Therefore, they are going to be more at risk of mycotoxin exposure. They aren’t necessarily alone; grains contain the similar risks and are thus not allowed and heavily restricted on the Kaufmann 1 and 2 Diets, respectively.

The fact that peanuts and corn are contaminated with mycotoxins may help explain why Americans are so sick. While eating peanut butter or corn on the cob won’t cause you to drop dead, prolonged exposure over years may explain why some people develop cancer, diabetes or heart disease – all disease which have at least some link to mycotoxins. Eating these foods over a lifetime results in steady, low-level exposure to the mycotoxins that can contaminate them. Furthermore, these two food stuffs are in virtually everything Americans eat; reading the back of any label will reveal peanut or corn components in the ingredients. For this reason, it is usually a good idea to avoid processed and/or prepackaged foods as much as possible

Avoiding both peanuts and corn is essential on the Kaufmann 1 diet. The goal of Kaufmann 1 is to limit exposure to mycotoxins while simultaneously starving pathogenic fungi inside the body. Knowing that corn and peanuts are both heavily contaminated with mold and the poisons they produce makes eliminating them from your diet a no-brainer.