Will peanut-based fuel make people sick?

Question:

This doesn’t necessarily have to do with antique vehicles, but it is something I’ve been wondering about.

It seems as though a lot of people who own diesel-powered vehicles have been recycling cooking oil to use as fuel. I saw a program on TV awhile back about a device to sort of re-refine discarded cooking oil from restaurants, etc. so it could be made into a home-brewed “biodiesel.” I have also read about someone who claimed to just use it as it was, with possibly a little filtering to remove any solid particles.

Now, here is what worries me: What if some of that stuff is peanut oil?

As you probably know, there are some individuals who are acutely allergic to peanuts. For example, a couple of years ago there was a girl up in Canada who died when her boyfriend kissed her after he ate some peanut candy and the small amount of chemical she got from that threw her into an allergic reaction that medical personnel were unable to reverse.

Is it possible that a person with such a condition who was driving along behind a diesel vehicle that happened to be burning a fuel that contained some peanut oil might get enough of whatever substance is in the peanuts that causes the allergic reaction to be in danger? Maybe it normally gets burned up in the engine but what if that particular engine was running a little rich or had a leaking injector?

Answer:

A very interesting question, indeed! According to the Mayo Clinic’s experts, someone who is allergic to peanuts may suffer a reaction if they inhale atomized peanut oil. Assuming this is, in fact, true, the question then becomes whether the exhaust from a vehicle running on biodiesel fuel that contains peanut oil can make someone who’s allergic to peanuts sick.

While others have raised this question, I could not find any definitive information that answers it.

Common sense would seem to dictate, however, that under certain exacting circumstances particularly sensitive people could end up gravely ill from ingesting peanut oil laden exhaust. Peanut products are pervasive throughout the world and people who are hypersensitive to them need to lead very vigilant lives already. I suspect that if use of peanut oil in vehicle fuel ever becomes commonplace these people will have yet one more thing to avoid.