To pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or to give the kids lunch money?
The general consensus is that it's safe to eat peanut butter as long as it's not the brands and lot numbers associated with the recent salmonella infection outbreak in the U.S., said John Hammond, spokesman for the Maryland Department of Health & Mental Hygiene.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising people not to eat any Peter Pan peanut butter bought since May 2006 and not to eat Great Value peanut butter bought since May 2006 with a product code that starts with 2111, according to the agency's Web site. Great Value is a Wal-Mart brand.
Those peanut butter jars are at risk of having been contaminated with a type of salmonella called Salmonella Tennessee.
As of Wednesday, Feb. 21, at least 329 people were infected with the outbreak strain of Salmonella Tennessee, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Web site.
