In honor of National Peanut Month, we decided to forget for a moment about the peanut’s allergic attributes and celebrate it through the life and discoveries of George Washington Carver. This American scientist, educator, botanist and inventor was born into slavery in Missouri in the middle of the 19th century.
His Mission:
With his own merits, honors and dedication he acquired the best college education you could possibly achieve in those times. His main goal as a researcher was to find alternate crops from cotton for farming families to have different forms of nutrition and personal sustainability. His techniques were intended to replenish soils depleted by continuous planting of cotton. Among the most commonly known “cotton substitutes” are corn, soy, sweet potatoes and peanuts. With the implementation of new crops, his research laboratory promoted applications and recipes of them to stimulate the farm-based economy of the South.
Some Numbers and Achievements:
George Washington Carver published 44 practical bulletins for farmers with 100 food recipes containing peanuts.
100 are the accounted for products born from his research that were useful for the survival of farming families during the famine of the early 1920’s, when cotton crops where destroyed by an epidemic.
He was accepted as a member of the Royal Society of Arts in England; met with three American presidents (T. Roosevelt, C. Coolidge and F.D. Roosevelt) who recognized his results; studied with the Crown Prince of Sweden, and had a dedicated newspaper column called “Professor Carver’s Advice”.
At Florida Center For Allergy & Asthma Care we are serious about our patients’ well-being and education of all things allergy and asthma; however, taking into account that February was Black History Month and March is National Peanut Month we thought it appropriate to feature George Washington Carver and recognize his amazing efforts and contributions to our nations’ history.
