The Peanut Butter Grandma goes to Washington

The Uncertain Hour

Marketplace

Government, News

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 26 October 2017

⏱️ 34 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Donald Trump, the business man president, isn’t the first politician to rail on government regulations. In 1979 Jimmy Carter, the Democrat peanut farmer president, told a crowd: “It should not have taken 12 years and a hearing record of over 100,000 pages for the FDA to decide what percentage of peanuts there ought to be in peanut butter.”

That really happened. It’s one of the most ridiculed, infuriating and misunderstood moments in American history, and it caught the attention of one Virginia housewife. Ruth Desmond, or the “Peanut Butter Grandma,” as she came to be known, first traveled to Washington, D.C., to learn about the risks of food additives. She ended up taking on corporations, and tipping the U.S. into a regulatory state. This is her story.

Welcome back to The Uncertain Hour. Where the things we fight the most about are the things we know the least about. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Is this your first night?
0:02.0	Yes.
0:03.0	Do I have that look on my face?
0:05.0	Yes, you have your research card.
0:07.0	I do.
0:08.0	The National Archives in College Park, Maryland is where much of the paperwork of America's
0:14.0	bureaucracy goes to retire.
0:16.0	You see on the ceiling the sign that says research consultation.
0:20.0	And if you follow the directions of the helpful staff up on the second floor, go in the
0:24.0	room to the left of that.
0:25.0	Great.
0:26.0	Well, completely confused.
0:28.0	You can find an archivist.
0:33.0	And you can ask them to bring out docket number 76.
0:38.0	Eventually someone will emerge from the bowels of the archives with a squeaky cart loaded
0:46.0	with a pile of old cardboard boxes that hold the truth to a chronically misunderstood moment
0:53.0	in American history.
0:55.0	These guys are heavy.
0:56.0	They don't look like all that much at first glance, just cardboard boxes, stuff with thousands
1:03.0	and thousands of pieces of paper.
1:05.0	Thank you.
1:08.0	But once you make your way to a desk, log one of the boxes off the cart quietly.
	...

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