June 13, 2018 • 54 mins
Although peanuts have been feeding us for basically ever, peanut butter is a pretty new invention. Anney and Lauren explore how peanut butter came to be, plus the science of how it stays fresh for so long.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Annyrees and I'm
Lauren voc Obama, and it's time friends to talk about
one of Annie's favorite foods and also yet another food
that Lauren cannot really eat, which is just a tragedy
of tragedies in my my humble opinion, I'm very sorry, Lauren,
but we're talking about peanut butter. And yes it's it's
(00:30):
in my top five, it might be my top three,
it might mean my number one. I love peanut butter.
I always have an emergency jar of peanut butter on
my person, oh like like in the studio, like right now,
just I have just like little pouches ready to go. Now,
I have a jar. Um. I normally don't dig into it,
(00:52):
but it's there just in case, just in case, because
I haven't been I've been in an emergency peanut butter situation.
Oh yeah, times, especially when traveling abroad where it's hard
to find. Oh. Absolutely, I always carry a R peanut
butter good. Yes, thank you, it's just smart. Just be prepared. Yeah,
people with peanut allergies stay away from me. And speaking
(01:14):
of peanuts plus peanut allergies is going to be a
different episode and I'm actually really excited to talk about
that too. Yeah. Yeah. The little bit that I glanced
through about how peanuts work was so fascinating that I
had to keep stopping myself and going, like, you're talking
about peanut butter today, Lauren, you can't look at this
right now. You don't have time. I did the same thing. Yeah,
I was like, this episode is going to become a
(01:38):
three hour long thing if we don't rain ourselves in right. Um,
but if at the end of this you you want
to hear some more, steph, you miss in history class.
Our sister podcast did an episode on peanut butter a
couple of years back, in case you've yeah, in case
you're you're like me and just get enough, yep enough.
It's called a Brief History of Peanut Butter. Yes, all right,
(02:03):
peanut butter? What is it? It's amazing into podcast. Thank
you for joining us. That's it's this has been food
stuff thanks to Dylan Bagan us super producing. Peanut butter
is kind of a butter of peanuts, if you will. Um,
but I would like to start out with the peanut
(02:24):
is not a nut. It's a cute that is very
correct and it's kind of cool how that came to be? Yes, yes,
it is. It is true. The peanut is neither a
pean nor a nut um, though it is a lot
closer to peas than two nuts. Botanically speaking, it's in
the family fabaccier as our peas, and in these specific
genus and species Arakis, Hypogaea and Hypogaea. Okay, because peanuts
(02:48):
grow underground. The plant itself looks like this small shrub,
and it grows these we delicate yellow flowers that look
a little bit like orchids. But those flowers, those flowers
wither and then instead of fruiting right there, like most
peas or beans do, they send out a little shoot
called a peg, and and the peg grows down into
the ground kind of like a banyon tree, like like
(03:10):
the ropes off of a Banian tree, and and forms
under the ground a peanut um, a woody shell in
casing one or more kernels. And these kernels are the
plants seeds, and they also happen to be pretty tasty.
Really well, I mean it's you know that you're aware. Um.
(03:31):
Peanut butter, therefore, is a shelled cooked ground peanuts um,
usually flavored with a little bit of sugar and salt
and with maybe a little oil added to stabilize the mixture,
because even though peanuts do have a high oil content,
if you want to homogenize the thing that you're going
to create an emulsion with some hydrogenated oil. Yes, it's
(03:52):
sweet and savory and salty. And as Annie is like
making little like like twitter painted vases over she's like
sort of mooning over the idea of it over there. Um,
it's intensely cravable and snack able. It's also a huge
nostalgia item on its own for many Americans, and a
common ingredient in some other cuisines around the world. Yes,
(04:12):
remember my peanut butter ice sand forever ago, and the
listener wrote in the recipe on how to make it,
I still think about that sky, Thank you really changed
my life. But how how does one make peanut butter?
Which you can make your own peanut butter, but industrially
industrially speaking, Um, to get peanut butter, you first have
(04:34):
to obtain a crop of whole peanuts in their shells.
It crack those shells open great amount for color defects, spots,
broken skins, the ones that don't pass mustard go on
to to be made into peanut oil, but the ones
that do are then dry roasted. Dry roasting means that
no additional oil is added during the process. They're simply
heated to around fahrenheit that's about one sixty celsius for
(04:56):
about six minutes until they're done. Um. And done is
when a photometer a light meter says that they've gone
from their starter color of white or red to the
appropriate color of brown. I love that they're Yeah, it's
color coded. Um. They're then cooled to stop the cooking process.
The skins are removed by either heat blanching or water blanching.
(05:19):
Both processes kind of have their downsides. Heat blanching removes
some of the antioxidants that make them nutritious. Water blanching
retains the peanut hearts, which are sort of bitter. You know.
So depending on what you're going for, UM, you then
grind the peanuts, either in increasing grades of fineness or
for chunky style UM with like an end addition of
(05:40):
those less fine bits um, or by removing a rib
from the grinder and think of the grinder like a
like a giant screw that has a bunch of ribs
wrapped around it that are sharp and pointy. Yeah. And
so if you remove one of those ribs from the
grinder but leave the rest of them, then you'll get
a naturally uh slightly cree me slightly chunky combination m h.
(06:05):
And then you pack it. Uh. One of the enemies
of peanut butter is oxygen. More on that later. So
bakers take steps to keep working peanut butter at pressure
and uh in the vacuum, seal it during packaging. In
the US, anyway, peanut butter must be at least peanuts
unless you want to label it imitation peanut butter or
(06:26):
otherwise like adulterated peanut butter, which I mean, you know,
companies can turn into marketing opportunities, but but no one
really like wants to do with the get go right,
unless you're going for a totally different product. Yeah, I
like that powdered peanut butter. Sure different thing, yeah, or
you know, a chocolate peanut butter. Oh yeah. And and
(06:47):
this is like, and he said, totally easy to do
at home. You just roast your own peanuts in the oven,
grind him in a blender food processor. Towards the end,
you throw in some sugar, salt and oil, any other
flavorings you want, and you just keep grinding it until
it's peanut butter. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, there's there's lots
of recipes online. Um as usual. The kitchen dot com
(07:09):
that's a kitchen spelled without the final E has a
pretty good one. So yeah, yeah, totally give it a
try if you're if you're so inclined. UM. Nutrition wise,
it's it's a little bit contentious about how nutritious peanut
butter is for you, because it is really high and fat,
(07:29):
but both good fats and bad fats. It's about fat
in terms of like calories proportion um. It's also a
good source of protein though, and has some dietary fiber,
usually a little bit of added sugar, so so it
will fill you up and it will keep you feeling
full for a while. But because of that high fat content,
it's really best when paired with other sources of fiber
(07:52):
and of protein. Yes, because your body doesn't want just butter.
It wants it well, but it does not need it
well your brains it makes your brain feel better than
I think it makes your body feel. For me anyway, eventually,
I'm like, can I have a salad? Can I please
just have peanut butter does also have a good amount
(08:16):
of several vitamins and minerals, including vitamins E and B six,
nice and full ate, manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, and copper, So
you know, good good stuff in there. Um. There's an
article on how stuff works dot Com called what would
happen if I just ate? If I ate nothing but
peanut butter for the rest of my life? And it
(08:36):
brings up these very points. Um, so you know, like
heat your serving sizes, don't eat just peanut butter for
the rest of your life, You're gonna get scurvy. Yeah,
my brain was like, but but what a great way
to go great we um as you've probably heard of
(08:58):
speak about. We recently took a road ship UM Dylan
Lauren and I super producer. Dylan and I went through.
We recorded audio pretty much the entire way up and
I went through and listened to the whole thing and
made like topics, possible topics, breakout episodes that could come
from what we were talking about. Yeah, a little little
(09:19):
add on segments or bonus episodes. We talked about peanut
butter for probably ten minutes and super producer Dylan used
to eat half a jar of Skippy a day, essentially.
All right, I've forgotten about that story. Oh we'll have
to We'll have to pull up the audio for that.
(09:40):
Oh we will. Um, maybe that'll be our peanut Bonus episode,
her peanut Bonus episode. And UM, I have a rule
called the evening out where I only let myself even
out the top of the peanut butter. That's what I
do with ice cream. The evening out. It's a thing. Um.
But there has been, um, a blind taste test. I
(10:01):
think it was thrillisted, a blind taste test of like
ten types of peanut butter, and um, they did find
that they liked Skippy Natural the most. And that's someone
who loves peanut butter. I've actually never had Skippy brand.
So now I'm like going to get, Wow, what's what's
your preferred peanut butter. It's funny because I feel like
(10:21):
I have an evolution. I used to like crunchy Peter Pan,
and then I went to smooth Jeff, and now I've
been some kind of weird like I guess, uh, fancy
peanut butter territory. It's pretty expensive but I have a
jar of jif and a jar of the fancy stuff,
So jeff for like the desperation the fancy stuff for
when I'm really gonna enjoy my peanut butter. Um. Okay,
(10:46):
all right, um, let's let's let's run some peanut butter numbers. Yes,
peanut butter numbers. Um. The US is actually not the
largest producer of peanuts. That would be China and India.
In the US, Georgia are our state of Georgia that
we right now is the largest producer comes from George's
peanut belt, which is a little little south. Um. Over
(11:07):
half of the peanuts produced domestically, do you end up
in peanut butter? Making one twelve ounce jar takes five
hundred and forty peanuts. Oh yeah, Okay. However, in two
thousand twelve, US peanut farmers churned out over six point
one billion pounds of peanuts, So I quite a lot
of peanuts. Yeah, Peanuts and peanut butter are a big
(11:30):
thing in the US. Not one but two US presidents
were peanut farmers, which out of forty five is pretty impressive.
Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter should mention if you got
that Bingo card. Get it out because this episode has
a lot around of American homes contain a jar or
more of peanut butter. That's me. Um and I side note,
(11:55):
I was sort of kind of dating this dude once
while I was working in Belgium and one I was
feeling homesick and he made me a meal of what
he considered traditional American foods and this included mac and
cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it was
really quite lovely. Um. And it's expensive over there, it's
expensive in most places I've been outside the US. UM.
(12:19):
And something similar happened when I was in China after
ran out of my traveling jar peanut butter and discovered
a tiny jar was going to run me about twenty
dollars USD, which I bought it anyway, but then another
intern ate my jar peanut butter. I still think about
that job. I haven't forgotten about it. And because of
my upset, an expat friend of mine through It was
(12:42):
the fourth of July and he made sure that they
were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches there and also pizza,
spaghetti and meatballs, hamburgers, hot dogs and mac and cheese.
So that is a very American spread. Yeah, it really is.
I hadn't really thought about it before, but yeah, it was.
It was a wonderful experience. Yeah, the average American consumes
(13:03):
about three pounds of peanut butter a year, amounting to
an annual seven hundred million pounds seven hundred million pounds
of peanut butter. To put that sort of into perspective
from we bought over five hundred and seventy eight million
jars of peanut butter. It's about one eight jars per person. Collectively,
(13:24):
all of that peanut butter is worth about eight hundred
million dollars. And if you're wondering how much of that
ends up in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, well before
graduating from high school, most American children will have had
somewhere around fifteen hundred p b and j's. That sounds
that sounds slow to me, to be super honest. That
was my go to four years and years and years. Yeah,
(13:47):
me too. And while peanut butter is seen as American,
we are certainly not the only country that enjoys it.
In Canada, folks might need it for breakfast and Haiti,
you can find freshly made peanut butter called Mamba from
street then ners in in the Netherlands you can find
it under the name of peanut Cheese, which I really enjoy.
And in Saudi Arabia, where it's growing in popularity, largely
(14:09):
because of expats in the oil industry. It's still not
big in Europe though, and this is not for lack
of trying. On the side of the American peanut farmers,
the average r Pean eats less than a tablespoon per
year of peanut butter. I guess they've got their new Tella,
your speculus, your marmite, other things outside of peanut butter,
(14:30):
And there's all kinds of peanut butter and peanut butter
and jelly related products, and Reese's peanut butter cupt related products,
pretty much any kind of dessert you can imagine. And
also you've got van Go, Vodkas, pp and j flavored liquor. Yeah.
As sort of a publicity stunt, one researcher made perhaps
the most expensive peanut butter product, a diamond. What it
(14:53):
wasn't an edible diamond, or I mean, no more so
than any other diamond is. But yeah. A team of
German scientists who were study how Earth's mantle works ran
a number of experiments creating diamonds in the lab, and
for one of these experiments, at the behest of a
local TV station, they used peanut butter as the carbon
rich source material for creating the diamond. It apparently didn't
(15:14):
work like great, but like it kind of the whole
experiment sort of fell apart due to the amount of
off gassing that was going on, But it didn't fall
apart before that made Before they made a diamond. I
will tell you if I were ever imprisoned for stealing
(15:35):
like a piece of jewelry in a museum, it would
be a peanut butter diamond. I know that just deep
in my bones. I think we all know that deep
in our bones. Anny, Well, we've got a lot of
peanut butter history for you do. But first we're going
(15:56):
to pause to a quick break for a word from
more sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Now it's time for some peanut butter history. Yes, and
some abbreviated peanut history. Extremely abbreviatedly. While the peanut plant
(16:19):
goes way back, pottery suggests possibly as far back as
three thousand, five years ago, but probably even further back
than that, like seven thousand, six hundred years ago. Peanut
butter is relatively new. Both the plant and the butter
most likely first came from Peru or Brazil roundabouts there.
In Peru, the Incans offered peanuts as sacrifices to the
(16:41):
gods and would bury them with mummies to help them
through their after while through their passage, Native South Americans
were grinding up peanuts in ancient times. In Brazil, the
indigenous tribes made a drink out of ground up peanuts
and corn. Sounds so good. I had I had to
drink like this in Japan from ending machine. It actually
was really good. You had to get over. Like for me,
(17:04):
when I take a drink, I'm expecting something probably like
sweet or crisp, and this was like very buttery, savory
experience in a can. Yeah, but it was good. The
ancient Incans and Aztecs roasted peanuts and ground them up
to make a paste. So depending on how you define
peanut butter, but you're closing in already. Um. When the
Spanish arrived to the New World, they found peanuts as
(17:26):
far north as Mexico. From there, the Spanish brought the
peanut back with them to Europe, and with the help
of traders and explorers, the peanut made the journey to
Asia and Africa. Portugal promoted the spread of peanuts in
Africa because at the time Sub Saharan Africa did not
have much in the way of an wheel plant. Peanuts
are about fifty percent oil, so um and it's from Africa,
(17:48):
not South America that the peanut arrived to North America
in the seventeen hundreds through slave ships from West Africa
sent to the British colonies. Peanuts were most likely fed
to slaves to survive the journey um and they weren't
the easiest crop to grow in North America at the time,
and most of what they could grow they allocated to
their livestock or to the poor. And there's someone we
(18:11):
got to talk about in this conversation because his name
frequently comes up when talking about peanuts, and that is
George Washington Carver. Once a slave, Carver used his new
found freedom to become a successful botanist, even in the
face of all the obstacles designed to keep African Americans
from success and we're talking meeting with world leaders like
(18:32):
Gandhi and Roosevelt level of success. Poor Southern Southerners all
over benefited from his innovative crop rotation system, primarily rotating
big crops like tobacco and cotton out for lesser grown
cops like peanuts, because those first two things deplete the soil,
but peanuts give a lot back to it. Exactly. Doing
this involved a lot of educating people about all the
(18:54):
things peanuts were good for. Don't you want to grow them?
They do all of this, and Carver came up with
over three hundred ways to use up peanuts, both food
wise and industry wise, from peanut paint to peanut laxatives.
He imagined a world where you could fuel cars with peanuts,
you could make a real substitute with peanuts, asparagus substitute
with peanuts, and peanut orange punch. But out of all
(19:17):
of those three hundred things, peanut butter was not one
of the things he invented. Uh. Yeah, it's frequently attributed
to him, but he did not did not invent it.
He did have a recipe for peanut paste in the
nineteen sixteen bulletin, similar to what the Aztecs and Incans
had been doing. Carvers called for pulverizing roasted peanuts and
a meat grinder, but not quite peanut butter yet. Um
(19:41):
and Ken Jennings of our sister podcast, Omnibus wrote an
entire article about this if you're interested of all the
things he came up to do with peanuts, which is
really it's overwhelming and terrific. But if Carver didn't invent
the peanut butter, who did? Who? Indeed who? Indeed, you're
not going to believe this, but some people credit John
(20:06):
Harvey kill Killogg. Yes, that killog don dun villainous Kellogg,
one of my historical nemeses, may be invented one of
my favorite foods. My brain was like, this cannot be,
this cannot be. In he patented a method of using
(20:28):
raw pey nuts to make pretty much peanut butter as
a non ut chewable protein source for the wealthy attendees
of John Harvey Kellogg's Western Health Reform Institute, or for
patients without teeth, or for both. Um, but history suggests
it was around before that. I think I can white
(20:50):
my brow. Yeah, yeah, because the whole year before that, Yes,
in businessman out of St. Louis by the name of
George Bale produced and commercially old the first peanut butter.
But some my histories dispute at Lauren, Oh no, it's
still I'm kind of clinging to the cling away away um.
(21:10):
So he's a contender. Some of the others that you
might see. Other inventors you might see credited for coming
up with peanut butter um as Marcellus Gilmore of Canada
patented a peanut paste made with roasted peanuts mailed between
two hot services. In another St. Louis peanut butter innovation
came from Dr Ambrose and his patent for a peanut
(21:33):
butter making machine. So there's a lot of a lot
of names in the mix. Whatever the case. Peanut butter
could be found at St. Louis's nineteen o four World Fare,
where it coffee Eye of company's Beechnut and High, who
then made peanut butter available nationally. At first, peanut butter
was a luxury food served in tea rooms along with
(21:54):
pimiento cheese, watercress, and celery on crackers. Which is really
funny because I remember when I was reading that article
the author was kind of like could you imagine? But
to me that sounds like I think all of those
pairings are kind of still around today, common in the
South anyway. Yeah, and like peanut butter and cheese, peanut
butter and celery, that's a pretty popular snack, yeah anyway. Um,
(22:14):
but it didn't stay relegated to the wealthy for long. Um.
Just three years later, in nineteen o seven, companies were
producing thirty four million pounds of peanut butter, and for context,
in that number was two million pounds. That boom, A
drastic jump. The next step, and peanut butter's evolution, came
in ninety two with Joseph rose Field and his discovery
(22:36):
of a method to prevent peanut butter from separating and
going rancid. To do this, rose Field converted peanut oil
into a saturated fat. This both kept peanut butter from
separating and also didn't stick to the roof of your
mouth as much, but it did sacrifice on some health
depending on who you ask in. He licensed this process
(22:57):
out to a company behind a peanut butter brand. You
probably heard of Peter pen Tins of peanut butter because
peanut butter was sold and metal tins before the wartime
required all the metal and before you know, plastics were true, yes,
boasted on the front, improved by hydrogenation. In Roseveld started
(23:20):
producing his own peanut butter that he called Skippy. As
the American economy became more commercial, peanut butter became more
accessible for lower income families. This is when more sugar
was introduced to the mix to appeal to kids. And
speaking of sugar, let's talk about Reese's Peanut butter Cup.
(23:41):
Is this a thing that like you got you got
flack four from a very young age. Yes, but I
I I went with it. I said that I was
like the heiress of the company. And kids believed me
because silly kids, and a part of me hoped inside
that maybe I really was. Yeah, alas they haven't called
you yet, not yet. Maybe this is They're gonna be
(24:03):
like there she is, she has we been looking for
her forever. It's like my princess diary tree. Yes, all right.
In Reese's Peanut butter Cup made its debut, it showed
up on shelves and here is a nutshell or a
candy shell story of how that happened. Former Hershey employee
(24:25):
H B. Reese founded Reese's in nineteen twenty three, and
of note, he was the father of sixteen children or
ten depending on your source, or possibly it was ten
surviving children, but either way, a lot of tru yeah,
and this is why he was looking to make some
money by getting in the chocolate business. Um. When they
first entered the market, peanut butter cups were sometimes called
(24:47):
penny cups because they only cost one cent, and they
were kind of an instant hit. According to family legend,
the overroasting of the peanuts um they made their own
peanut butter was the secret. Reese oversaw the construction of
a one hundred thousand square foot factory on Chocolate Avenue
and Hershey, Pennsylvania. We have got to visit hershe goodness.
(25:08):
It wasn't until nineteen three customers could buy the cups individually,
because before that they came in an assortment are in
bulk for store displays. But people specifically wanted the Reese's
peanut butter cup. The company turned out other things to
like raising clusters, or at least they did until the
scarcity brought on by World War Two forced them to
focus solely on the cups. Their most successful product, and
(25:30):
it helps that peanut butter wasn't rationed and automation made
production easier and cheaper. One story goes, the situation got
so dire the sheriff came looking for Reese for unpaid
bills and found that Reset absconded from as far the
consolidation of product paid off, but Reese died suddenly of
a heart attack in nineteen fifty six. Once seven years
(25:51):
had passed, six of Reese's sons sold the hb Rees
Candy Company to Hershey's Chocolate Company for twenty three point
five million in nineteen sixty three. The Reese's children also
got a five percent share in the company, worth today
about one billion dollars. Who billion dollars um? Milton her
(26:12):
She was a big fan of races. There was a
rumor that he had a secret stash in his desk,
and he saw the company before her. She's bought it
as a customer instead of a competitor, since the cups
used her She's Chocolate, Reese and Milton Hershey are buried
meters apart in the Hershey Cemetery. Yeah, Reese's have branched
out beyond peanut butter, filling since her she's acquired them,
(26:34):
but have also spawned Reese's Pieces in Night, which do
have a different filling than the cups, Reese's Puffs, cereal,
it's Reese's for breakfast. My parents never let me try that,
never had it um and Reese's cups with Reese's Pieces
in them, and never a friend who loves these and
were the first time she showed them to me, she
cut them as if it was a fancy like piece
(26:55):
of chocolate. She cut it down the middle, and she
showed me the inside, and she said, it's like looking
at a damn sunrise. It was beautiful. These days, Reese's
are the most popular candy in America, but they're kind
of niche most everywhere else. Japan is experiencing a surge
(27:16):
in Reese's popularity, though they're like most international countries. The
cups don't come with a preservative that has been found
to do some damage to DNA and is a precursor
to stump tumors tb h Q. The u S allows
small amounts since doses of the allowed point zero two
percent are less do not seem to cause any negative
(27:36):
side effects, and that's how much is in um Reese's Cups?
Is this the allowed amount? Um? May is I love
Reese's Day. This became about by a fan petition of
believe five hundred thousand signatures. Sales of Reese's comes out
to an annual five hundred million. And yes, the film
(27:57):
et did pretty much save Reese's. P says after the
movie sales went up by six And I read one
stat that said sales of Reese's products overall went up
by three. H t came out, and yes, eminem was
Pielberg's first choice, and Mars, the company behind Eminem's, turned
them down. And if you're curious, there are way more
(28:19):
orange ones. The breakout is about orange each yellow and brown. Yeah.
When the new Harry Potter movies came out, as a kid,
I would make chocolate frogs and I would use the
same type of peanut butter filling used by Ess which
for me it was for a homemaker. It was essentially
peanut butter with with butter and powdered sugar, oh sure,
(28:42):
mixed in. Yeah. The scientific reason, by the way, that
that people love Reese's so much Reese's Cup so much
is that it's a combination of textures, the slightly chunky
peanut butter with the smooth chocolate, and so that that
novel combination, or that combination of two novel sensations makes
your brain go, oh what what what do more this? Yeah? Totally, Um, yeah,
(29:06):
there was. I found an article that was basically asking
why is there why has no one else been able
to compete with Reese's. Um, there really is. I didn't
think about it, but there's not really competitor at all. Nope,
good job, guys. Call me. I'm here. I'm waiting for
(29:27):
those royalty checks roll in. I'm pretty sure that's how
that works. Um. Okay, So Reese's peanut butter cup story
aside over, let's step back a bit to Okay. Hind's
brand peanut Butter was the first to include hydrogenated vegetable
oils on the ingredient list to solve that separation thing,
but also to make it more spreadable and longer lasting.
(29:50):
With three big brands boasting now more spreadable peanut butter
and slice bread available as well, peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut
butter sandwiches were popular food during the Great Depression. What
does that mean? Is it? Is it peanut butter jelly time.
Could it be? Is it? Is? It? It is? The
(30:14):
first written recipe for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich
appeared in the edition of Boston Cooking School, magazine of
Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. Still not quite though, because
it used peanut paste as opposed to peanut butter. It
wasn't until World World War Two that those peanut butter
sandwiches got the addition of jelly. It was included in
the Soldiers Rations, as with peanut butter and bread. Just
(30:35):
makes sense. Soldiers returned to the US after the war
and wanted to recreate some of the foods they'd had abroad,
and vola the poeb and j The standard Poe B
and J by the way, is two tablespoons each of
peanut butter and jelly. And the US, the most popular
flavor is grape boo, followed by strawberry. But when you
(30:56):
think about it, everyone probably has a really personalized favorite
crust versus no us diagonally slice, cruntry versus smooth, and
I find it kind of lovely and adorable and super
producer Dylan and I were discussing before we started podcasting
our our sandwich of choice, and they were very personal
and funny to me. Um So listeners you should send
(31:16):
in if you've got a preferred way of P V
and J. By the nineteen fifties, Thinks in Part two
big companies like ConAgra and Procter and Gamble. Peanut butter
was a billion dollar business. However, not always well on
the peanut butter worlds. A survey conducted in nineteen fifty
nine found that Jeff peanut butter was only seventy five peanuts.
(31:40):
The rest was hydrogenated oil and sugar. The survey was
all part of the FDA's ongoing struggle to rid the
shelves of inferior peanut butters. Legally, peanut butter went through
kind of an intense definition process so to keep the
oil from separating. Producers want to know if they could
get away with adding glycer into the mix, and the
(32:02):
FDA was kinding me, and to specify me means that
they responded with the term peanut butter is generally understood
to mean a product consisting solely of ground roasted peanuts,
with or without a small quantity of added salt. Basically,
you could add it, but you'd have to note on
the label that you did prominently Okay, So the FDA
(32:27):
proposed that to be recognized as peanut butter, a product
had to be peanuts along with additional sweeteners. In one
they actually wanted the peanut requirement to be but found
that the average American consumer preferred a sweeter, more easily
spreadable product. Jeff Peter Pan and Skippy entered the regulations
phrase soon after. Over the next ten years a decade
(32:50):
complete with a twenty week long public evidentiary hearing with
nearly eight thousand page long transcript, the peanut butter hearing
is waged. One attorney joke that they quote put many
lawyers children through college. Most of this whole thing revolved
around a difference in a proposed peanut content of merely
(33:11):
three percent in YEP. An entire decade later, the f
d A one out, requiring more peanut content coming out
less fat. The process took so long and was so
difficult and so expensive, the f d A was like, Nope,
never again, and decided to focus less on defining foods
(33:33):
and more on safe and transparent food labeling. Without this shift,
mayonnaise may never have come to be. Oh wait, wait wait,
First we have this John Harvey Kellogg thing, and now
Manna's was able to be created because of peanut butter,
my food nemesis, my hero food led to my villain food.
(33:54):
I have so much, so much to think about. Isn't
that how the story goes? The Avengers, They've almost everyone
it's a Covia, but not that one dude's family who
tears them apart in Civil War. My brain is almost
all peanut butter, popcorn, and Marvel and Harry Potter. I
hope like two people understood that reference, but I got it. Yeah, lord,
(34:16):
it was just for you al write peanut butter. I
guess I would rather have peanut butter in the world
and deal with mayonnaise. Yeah, but I do need to
think on things. Um. And while this whole thing was
going on, Smuckers introduced a new product called goober In
(34:37):
and I llowed when I read this, and then I
realized it's still around. If you don't recognize the name,
goober is the combo of peanut butter and jelly in
one jar, usually like stripes. Yeah, you can find them
in strawberry crepe and chocolate flavors. Okay, here's another fun
side story. I can't can't mention peanut butter without mentioning
Elvis Presley. No, apparently not. Legend goes in nine six one,
(35:03):
Elvis Presley was entertaining some friends from out of town
at his home in Graceland, and these friends worked for
the Denver, Colorado Police Force. They got to talking about
a favorite sandwich of theirs back in Denver, and Elvis
did that rich person thing. I was like, you know,
that sounds good. Let's go. And they hopped on his
private jet sometime around midnight and left for Denver, and
(35:23):
the couple that owned the restaurant that made the sandwich
that these hungry fellows were talking about met them in
the hangar and they all spent three hours eating sandwiches
washed down with champagne. What a life. Um. The sandwich
was called the Fool's Gold Loaf, and the price tag
would run you around sixty five dollars at its highest.
And what was it to you? Ask? A hollowed out
(35:45):
loaf that was stuffed with an entire jar of peanut butter,
a jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon. Oh
my goodness. Well, and then you like slice it like
like like a peanut butter, jelly and bacon. G od
oh man, it looked I mean it looked like a
sandwich you'd get a subway, like a six edge, but
(36:05):
it was stuffed, hollowed out and stuffed. Um. Nowadays, when
you see an Elvis named sandwich is usually peanut, butter, bacon,
and banana. I find he was pretty well known for
loving peanut, butter and banana sandwiches. Um, but that's in
general where it comes from. Although his mom said he'd
eat peanut, butter, bacon and banana sandwich is pretty feverishly
according to one cookbook. I've actually never had one, but
(36:27):
I mean it sounds just nice. Well, it's pretty good.
There's a a burger joint rounds about Atlantic called the Vortex.
They have a lot of sandwiches that, um, when you read,
you're like, that's terrible for you, stunt sandwiches. Yeah, but
I want it nonetheless. Um. And they have a like
Elvis Burger and it's like a burger but peanut, butter,
(36:50):
bacon and banana. Yeah, it's good, I believe you. I mean,
it's one of those things where like three bites in
you're like, well, I've had enough. I really like it
while it lasted, but this has got to come to
an end. Um And speaking kind of health concerns, health
concerns around Peanut Better caused a sales slump in the
(37:12):
eighties and nineties, but they picked back up again in
the recession. Since it still long lasting, healthy ish, cheap
food stuff. Kids like it. However, with the dawn of
the new millennium and more and more artisanal and organic
peanut butter hitting the shelves, it's a it's a whole
new world kind of peanut butter is just it's there
(37:36):
to stay, but also doing a lot of experimentation. It's
for everybody's there's a market for anything that you're in
the market for. It's for everybody that doesn't have a
peanuts well, yes, absolutely, it's for people that it's that
can eat it without dying. These health concerns didn't stop
the opening of Manhattan's Peanut Butter and Co. It was
(38:00):
in sixteen, but they used to have all kinds of
fancy takes on the p B and J. And you
can still find the menu online if you're just kind
of curious like I was. The peanut butter jelly time
meme viral flash clip made a splash in two thousand two.
I'm not gonna sing it, but you've probably seen it.
I'm sure you know that you know what we're talking about.
If not, I guess google it. If that's how you
(38:21):
want to spend the rest of your life is having
that in your head. In the early two thousands, increasing
diagnoses of anaphylactic peanut allergies caused some school systems, mostly
in the US and Canada, but another spots worldwide to
totally ban peanut butter and other peanut products. Research, by
the way, has found that total bands don't really work.
Um schools with bands have the same number of EpiPen
(38:43):
emergencies as schools without bands, but establishing peanut free tables
in lunch rooms does work, so research to look at
if this is a cause for concerning your community. Starting
in two thousand seven, there were a number of large
scale outbreaks of salmonella due to peanut butter and other
products containing it. One of the largest of these, traced
(39:07):
to ConAgra Foods brands Peter Pan and Great Value, sickened
between six hundred and seven hundred people across forty seven
states and resulted in what the Justice Department said was
the highest criminal fine ever in a food investigation, eleven
point two million dollars. Whoa uh. Salmonella are are bacteria
(39:28):
that can infect your guts and cause all kinds of unpleasantness.
They're passed along through feces and can can hitch a
ride on meats or plants via contamination during processing. For
for a chicken breast, that might be contamination with chicken
guts during butchery. For peanuts, it might be like a
leaky roof and infected bird droppings getting into the factory.
Cooking foods to recommended temperatures usually over like a hundred
(39:50):
and thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's fifty four degrees celsius will
kill salmonella and basically all other pathogenic or disease causing bacteria.
Um And that's part of why peanuts are generally roasted
before being made into peanut butter. I mean, the other
reason is that it makes them tasty. But yeah, However,
if the bacteria get into peanut butter after that roasting
(40:13):
part of the process, it's like game over, man, It's
it's bad news. Um uh. Fats tend to protect these microbes.
From the acids of our stomach that might otherwise kill them.
So food safety experts generally agreed that that eleven point
two million dollar fine in that peter Pan case was
a really good thing. Is it hopefully put them and
other big manufacturers on their toes, Hey buddies, let's watch
(40:37):
out for this one. Yeah, yeah, I remember that because
I believe there's a big peter Pan factory in Georgia. Yeah,
it was from one of the Georgia facilities. Basically, as
far as I'm aware, all of the major outbreaks were
from Georgia facilities. But that's not terribly surprising because we're
the largest producers. So yeah, I remember it, though it's like,
(41:00):
oh yeah, there was a huge recall. Yeah, the news
broken like two thousand seven. Then they recalled all of
their peanut butter that had been made back to Yeah
that's massive. Yeah. Uh. These days, snack and recipe sized
portions individual cups of peanut butter are pretty common in
grossery stores, tapping into those convenience markets. Yeah, and of course,
(41:22):
researchers are trying to build better peanut butter with better peanuts.
Newly developed varieties are more disease resistant stay fresh longer,
and have a higher percentage of the good fats. M
m m m m m m m uh. And that's
verging on science, but we have not quite reached our
science portion yet yet. We will do. After a quick
(41:45):
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So Scientifically speaking, peanut
butter is pretty cool for a number of reasons. It's
(42:05):
high fat and low water content mean that it is
an unfriendly environment for bacteria and molds to grow in,
even for prolonged periods hanging out at room temperature. And
by low water content, I mean like really low, like
peanut butter is only about two percent water. The oils
in it, the unsaturated oils in it, anyway, will start
to go rancid after a year or so a room temperature,
(42:25):
but that's generally all you really have to worry about.
And this this is going to be a sidebar about rancidity.
Rancidity sidebar that sounds like a band and I want
to go to their show. I'm pretty sure I've been
to that show, all right. Rancidity is what happens when
(42:48):
unsaturated oils interact with oxygen. The the oxygen breaks down
some of the lipid compounds, turning the tasty kind of bright,
fatty flavors into these gross, sour, bitter a sheet or
even soapy flavors bad times. And this process can be
kick started by exposure to air. Of course, the oxygen
(43:09):
is in the air, but also heat, light, and humidity
will speed it up. And it's not just when an
oil is like old that um. Have you ever noticed
that kind of off fishy smell that you start to
get when you use the same pan of oil to
fry like a whole bunch of batches of food, Even
if it's not fish, you could get that fishy note.
And that's that's rancidity. That's the heat of the oil
(43:32):
starting to make the oil, the heat of the pan
starting to make the oil go a little bit rancid.
But peanut butter resists rancidity better than many other products
because they've got a lot of vitamin E, which is
an antioxidant, which means that it can help block the
oxygen from breaking down those lipid molecules. And and don't
don't panic. Slightly rancid oils like those in old peanut
(43:55):
butter kins still be just perfectly okay to eat um,
though some of the same compounds that smell and taste
weird can also break down some of the vitamins in
the product, making it less nutritious, and there have been
cases of like very rancid oils causing digestive upset. I
mean basically, if it smells bad or tastes bad, don't
don't eat it. Pretty decent, decent advice, except for like
(44:19):
my favorite cheeses, true and beers and maybe pickles and
a lot of other things. But in the case of
maybe peanut butter oils, yes, yes. To prevent the rancidity
of peanut butter and other oil based products, including oils, um,
store them tightly sealed in a cool, dry, dark place,
(44:42):
you know, like a cupboard. Oh yeah, maybe not like
right over the stove. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Storing peanut butter
in the fridge will extend its lifespan, but it's not necessary. Yeah,
especially if you're going through it, like in less than
a year. I was about to say, Dylan was like,
how much do you think you've out through? I go
about through two or three jars here, And I was like,
(45:03):
I'm pretty sure I go through at least one on one.
I don't think I have to worry about this. Yeah, no, no, no, no,
you're you're absolutely fine. UM. But yeah, the whole rancidity
issue is part of why manufacturers will add a little
bit of those saturated fats in to um to to
a get get the emulsion going where it's going to
be a smooth, consistent product in the jar without doing
(45:24):
that separation of oils that you see in natural peanut
butters and be to um to to help offset the UH.
The tendency of those unsaturated oils that are naturally in
peanuts from going rancid, yes, UM peanut butters, shelf stability
and high energy density from all that oil content also
make it a great candidate for emergency nutritive care UH.
(45:49):
During the nineteen nineties, in the midst of hunger epidemics
around the world, the French Institute of Research for Development
and food manufacturer Nutriset developed what would be the first
peanut bay ready to Use Therapeutic food UM or are
U t F, which is sort of like an m
r E, a meal ready to eat intended not as
a ration but for treating severe acute malnutrition, and it's
(46:14):
a packet of basically like super peanut butter um ground peanuts,
sugar and oil, plus milk powder for protein and added
vitamins and minerals and these. The stuff has a leg
up on other therapeutic foods because it doesn't require preparation
or water. You could just hand them out to families
who can use them at home, and they pack about
five calories into this really small unit. If you've ever
(46:36):
seen a photo of a of a hungry kid eating
from like a brightly colored packet since the bid nineties,
it was probably a peanut based our ut f um,
though other lagoons like like chickpeas and lentils are used,
and organizations like UNICEF distribute a lot of it, some
thirty five thousand metric tons per year, which is enough
(46:56):
to treat about two point five million children. It's not
the best long term plan because it's it's expensive do
that milk powder. Um. You know, it's foreign aid based,
which isn't helping people UM in the long term, and
it's better for for emergencies than as a permanent nutritional supplement.
But it's pretty great that it exists. Yeah, absolutely, UM
(47:20):
and I we didn't really go into this but from
what I have read doing the research for this, and
also kind of outside because I do love peanut butter,
so I'll read pretty much any of like peanut butter. Um,
there's no real difference peanut butter, says organic. UM Like
health wise, there's at least not a lot of proved
(47:44):
to back that up. We still we still need a
whole episode about organics and what that term doesn't does
not mean um in the United States, because it means
that certain kinds of treatments can't be applied two plants.
But yeah, others still can. Yeah, but if you like,
(48:05):
I mean, it's usually more expensive, um the work in
it kind of peanut butter. But I do have an
organic kind of peanut butter that I just prefer so,
you know, I mean from the manufacturing process probably not
from yeah, yeah, yeah, just taste wise. I like it.
I like a lot of peanut butters. Though this has
(48:25):
been a very delightful episode for me. I'm sorry, Lauren,
you did get to try a little bit on that
sand Yeah, No, I mean I can. I can have
a little bit without it upsetting my stomach too much.
It's it's just it's an intolerance, not a not an allergy,
but so I can I can have a little that. Um.
It was so good though, like I had forgotten because
I've been having like almond butter and cashe butter, stuff
(48:45):
like that sun butter. And it's not the same, y'all.
It's not. It's delicious in its own right, but it's
not the same. It's not the same. Um that story
I told earlier about the guy in Europe who did
that like American theme meal for me my um. I
was living with another exchange student who um had a
(49:06):
very severe peanut allergy and I wasn't allowed to have
peanut butter in the house. UM, so I have my
emergency jar and I remember having a moment of like
like sad music is playing. I ate all that peanut butter.
I left it at my office. There you go. But
that was another thing exacerbating my desire for peanut butter.
(49:30):
You literally couldn't. I couldn't. Oh man, Yeah, this has
been a really fun one, and there's a I definitely
really do want to come back and talk about peanuts
and peanut allergies and I really could do a whole
Just let me have a peanut butter side side podcast,
any kind of peanut butter related thing, I'll talk about it.
(49:54):
Reese's get in touch with this, right, come on. I
narrowed that down to you. I was like, Annie, this
is just kind of related to peanut butter. You need
to chill out, self contained exactly. But I couldn't stop
myself from putting a story. It's a good story, it
really is. And speaking of good stories, this brings us
(50:15):
to listen. Man, I'm not sure how that went. That
was okay, So Ashley wrote, I just listened to your
pasta episode and I wanted to share with you how
I like to eat my pasta. Similar to Annie, I
(50:38):
prefer to have my pasta somewhat without sauce. However, the
older I get, the more I'm willing to experience my
noodles smothered and sauce. However, here's how I prepare it.
Once the noodles are made, I put butter on them
to get them all slippery. Then I add salt and
pepper to taste. Once that is done, I will put
the tiniest bit of sauce on them, like literally a
teaspoon worth, and then mix the sauce into my noodles.
(50:59):
So the noodles have the tiniest bit of rendness to them. Mmmmmmmmm,
so delicious. The butter add that delicious fat taste to this,
and it's literally the best thing ever all caps. It's
hard to make a tea spoon's worth of pasta when
I make it for just myself, But when I have
a bunch of people over or I'm visiting my parents,
I'll eat my pasta this way. This sounds delicious. I did.
(51:24):
I used to like, I would scoot the noodles along
the verge of the all along the outside borders of
the sauce and get a little tinge it, just a
little hint, and uh I did love that. So I
think I'm going to try this out for sure. And again,
thanks to everyone who wrote in it's like I do
this too, and also to the people who wrote in
her like You're a monster, but it's okay. I appreciate
(51:47):
that absolutely. Um Alyssa wrote, Hi, my name is Alyssa
and I come from Guatemala. Apologies right off the bat
because my Spanish is okay, but I may or may
not butcher some of these words. Alissa and everyone else
from Spanish speaking everywhere anyway, um. I listened to your
Tomali's podcast a few weeks ago and found it very interesting.
(52:08):
Tomalies are a very important part of our culture and
we have different varieties depending on the region they are made.
I want to tell you a little bit about my
favorite Guatemalan tomalies patches uh. The massa is made out
of potatoes with the traditional chicken or pork filling, a
little spicy, and wrapped in plantain leaves. These are mostly
eaten on Thursdaysaves of patches clearly uh tomaless uh. These
(52:32):
are the most traditional, made for celebrations. The massa is
made out of a mixture of rice and corn, or
maybe just rice, which gives the tamali is a kind
of fluffy texture with the traditional plantain wrap tamalito peeling.
Traditional corn massa mixed with peeling which is a delicious
small green leaf and wrapped in corn leaves. These are
made without the meat filling. The Guatemalan corn leaf tamales
(52:55):
are traditionally bigger than the ones from Mexico and tied
over the end to avoid spilling cheetos. Traditional corn maussa
chicken filling with a ricato sauce and wrapped in corn leaves.
These are served with a special tomato sauce, a dry
crumbled cheese on top, with a little bit of onions
and celery for garnish. This sounds so good. There are many,
(53:16):
many more. Some are filled with black beans. Some are sweet, yes,
they add chocolate and plum raisins. Or the massa is
made sweet without any filling. Not a fan, but people
love them. And finally we also include these tomales actually
the ones made out of the traditional corn mesa and
make different dishes out of them. Please please, as a favor,
I want to ask you if you can give a
shout out for people to raise awareness and funds for
(53:38):
the people that have been affected by the recent volcano
eruption in Guatemala. Lots of people would really appreciate it. Absolutely. Yes,
If you google um Guatemala volcano relief then it will
be the internet will kindly hook you up with with
stuff that you can donate to or do in your area. Absolutely.
Oh yeah, those sounds so good. I'm hungry again. Now
(54:00):
I'm so hungry. Well, I think we're gonna go find
some food. Yes, oh goodness, yes, But thanks to both
of them for writing in if you would like to
write to you, Ken our emails food stuff at astaf
works dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Facebook and Twitter at food stuff hs W.
Also on Instagram at food stuff. We hope to hear
(54:22):
from you. Thank you as always to super producer Dylan Fagan,
Thank you to you for listening and we hope that
lots more good things are coming your way
Hello, and welcome to Food Stuff. I'm Annyrees and I'm
Lauren voc Obama, and it's time friends to talk about
one of Annie's favorite foods and also yet another food
that Lauren cannot really eat, which is just a tragedy
of tragedies in my my humble opinion, I'm very sorry, Lauren,
but we're talking about peanut butter. And yes it's it's
(00:30):
in my top five, it might be my top three,
it might mean my number one. I love peanut butter.
I always have an emergency jar of peanut butter on
my person, oh like like in the studio, like right now,
just I have just like little pouches ready to go. Now,
I have a jar. Um. I normally don't dig into it,
(00:52):
but it's there just in case, just in case, because
I haven't been I've been in an emergency peanut butter situation.
Oh yeah, times, especially when traveling abroad where it's hard
to find. Oh. Absolutely, I always carry a R peanut
butter good. Yes, thank you, it's just smart. Just be prepared. Yeah,
people with peanut allergies stay away from me. And speaking
(01:14):
of peanuts plus peanut allergies is going to be a
different episode and I'm actually really excited to talk about
that too. Yeah. Yeah. The little bit that I glanced
through about how peanuts work was so fascinating that I
had to keep stopping myself and going, like, you're talking
about peanut butter today, Lauren, you can't look at this
right now. You don't have time. I did the same thing. Yeah,
I was like, this episode is going to become a
(01:38):
three hour long thing if we don't rain ourselves in right. Um,
but if at the end of this you you want
to hear some more, steph, you miss in history class.
Our sister podcast did an episode on peanut butter a
couple of years back, in case you've yeah, in case
you're you're like me and just get enough, yep enough.
It's called a Brief History of Peanut Butter. Yes, all right,
(02:03):
peanut butter? What is it? It's amazing into podcast. Thank
you for joining us. That's it's this has been food
stuff thanks to Dylan Bagan us super producing. Peanut butter
is kind of a butter of peanuts, if you will. Um,
but I would like to start out with the peanut
(02:24):
is not a nut. It's a cute that is very
correct and it's kind of cool how that came to be? Yes, yes,
it is. It is true. The peanut is neither a
pean nor a nut um, though it is a lot
closer to peas than two nuts. Botanically speaking, it's in
the family fabaccier as our peas, and in these specific
genus and species Arakis, Hypogaea and Hypogaea. Okay, because peanuts
(02:48):
grow underground. The plant itself looks like this small shrub,
and it grows these we delicate yellow flowers that look
a little bit like orchids. But those flowers, those flowers
wither and then instead of fruiting right there, like most
peas or beans do, they send out a little shoot
called a peg, and and the peg grows down into
the ground kind of like a banyon tree, like like
(03:10):
the ropes off of a Banian tree, and and forms
under the ground a peanut um, a woody shell in
casing one or more kernels. And these kernels are the
plants seeds, and they also happen to be pretty tasty.
Really well, I mean it's you know that you're aware. Um.
(03:31):
Peanut butter, therefore, is a shelled cooked ground peanuts um,
usually flavored with a little bit of sugar and salt
and with maybe a little oil added to stabilize the mixture,
because even though peanuts do have a high oil content,
if you want to homogenize the thing that you're going
to create an emulsion with some hydrogenated oil. Yes, it's
(03:52):
sweet and savory and salty. And as Annie is like
making little like like twitter painted vases over she's like
sort of mooning over the idea of it over there. Um,
it's intensely cravable and snack able. It's also a huge
nostalgia item on its own for many Americans, and a
common ingredient in some other cuisines around the world. Yes,
(04:12):
remember my peanut butter ice sand forever ago, and the
listener wrote in the recipe on how to make it,
I still think about that sky, Thank you really changed
my life. But how how does one make peanut butter?
Which you can make your own peanut butter, but industrially
industrially speaking, Um, to get peanut butter, you first have
(04:34):
to obtain a crop of whole peanuts in their shells.
It crack those shells open great amount for color defects, spots,
broken skins, the ones that don't pass mustard go on
to to be made into peanut oil, but the ones
that do are then dry roasted. Dry roasting means that
no additional oil is added during the process. They're simply
heated to around fahrenheit that's about one sixty celsius for
(04:56):
about six minutes until they're done. Um. And done is
when a photometer a light meter says that they've gone
from their starter color of white or red to the
appropriate color of brown. I love that they're Yeah, it's
color coded. Um. They're then cooled to stop the cooking process.
The skins are removed by either heat blanching or water blanching.
(05:19):
Both processes kind of have their downsides. Heat blanching removes
some of the antioxidants that make them nutritious. Water blanching
retains the peanut hearts, which are sort of bitter. You know.
So depending on what you're going for, UM, you then
grind the peanuts, either in increasing grades of fineness or
for chunky style UM with like an end addition of
(05:40):
those less fine bits um, or by removing a rib
from the grinder and think of the grinder like a
like a giant screw that has a bunch of ribs
wrapped around it that are sharp and pointy. Yeah. And
so if you remove one of those ribs from the
grinder but leave the rest of them, then you'll get
a naturally uh slightly cree me slightly chunky combination m h.
(06:05):
And then you pack it. Uh. One of the enemies
of peanut butter is oxygen. More on that later. So
bakers take steps to keep working peanut butter at pressure
and uh in the vacuum, seal it during packaging. In
the US, anyway, peanut butter must be at least peanuts
unless you want to label it imitation peanut butter or
(06:26):
otherwise like adulterated peanut butter, which I mean, you know,
companies can turn into marketing opportunities, but but no one
really like wants to do with the get go right,
unless you're going for a totally different product. Yeah, I
like that powdered peanut butter. Sure different thing, yeah, or
you know, a chocolate peanut butter. Oh yeah. And and
(06:47):
this is like, and he said, totally easy to do
at home. You just roast your own peanuts in the oven,
grind him in a blender food processor. Towards the end,
you throw in some sugar, salt and oil, any other
flavorings you want, and you just keep grinding it until
it's peanut butter. Yeah, that's it. Yeah, there's there's lots
of recipes online. Um as usual. The kitchen dot com
(07:09):
that's a kitchen spelled without the final E has a
pretty good one. So yeah, yeah, totally give it a
try if you're if you're so inclined. UM. Nutrition wise,
it's it's a little bit contentious about how nutritious peanut
butter is for you, because it is really high and fat,
(07:29):
but both good fats and bad fats. It's about fat
in terms of like calories proportion um. It's also a
good source of protein though, and has some dietary fiber,
usually a little bit of added sugar, so so it
will fill you up and it will keep you feeling
full for a while. But because of that high fat content,
it's really best when paired with other sources of fiber
(07:52):
and of protein. Yes, because your body doesn't want just butter.
It wants it well, but it does not need it
well your brains it makes your brain feel better than
I think it makes your body feel. For me anyway, eventually,
I'm like, can I have a salad? Can I please
just have peanut butter does also have a good amount
(08:16):
of several vitamins and minerals, including vitamins E and B six,
nice and full ate, manganese, phosphorus, magnesium, and copper, So
you know, good good stuff in there. Um. There's an
article on how stuff works dot Com called what would
happen if I just ate? If I ate nothing but
peanut butter for the rest of my life? And it
(08:36):
brings up these very points. Um, so you know, like
heat your serving sizes, don't eat just peanut butter for
the rest of your life, You're gonna get scurvy. Yeah,
my brain was like, but but what a great way
to go great we um as you've probably heard of
(08:58):
speak about. We recently took a road ship UM Dylan
Lauren and I super producer. Dylan and I went through.
We recorded audio pretty much the entire way up and
I went through and listened to the whole thing and
made like topics, possible topics, breakout episodes that could come
from what we were talking about. Yeah, a little little
(09:19):
add on segments or bonus episodes. We talked about peanut
butter for probably ten minutes and super producer Dylan used
to eat half a jar of Skippy a day, essentially.
All right, I've forgotten about that story. Oh we'll have
to We'll have to pull up the audio for that.
(09:40):
Oh we will. Um, maybe that'll be our peanut Bonus episode,
her peanut Bonus episode. And UM, I have a rule
called the evening out where I only let myself even
out the top of the peanut butter. That's what I
do with ice cream. The evening out. It's a thing. Um.
But there has been, um, a blind taste test. I
(10:01):
think it was thrillisted, a blind taste test of like
ten types of peanut butter, and um, they did find
that they liked Skippy Natural the most. And that's someone
who loves peanut butter. I've actually never had Skippy brand.
So now I'm like going to get, Wow, what's what's
your preferred peanut butter. It's funny because I feel like
(10:21):
I have an evolution. I used to like crunchy Peter Pan,
and then I went to smooth Jeff, and now I've
been some kind of weird like I guess, uh, fancy
peanut butter territory. It's pretty expensive but I have a
jar of jif and a jar of the fancy stuff,
So jeff for like the desperation the fancy stuff for
when I'm really gonna enjoy my peanut butter. Um. Okay,
(10:46):
all right, um, let's let's let's run some peanut butter numbers. Yes,
peanut butter numbers. Um. The US is actually not the
largest producer of peanuts. That would be China and India.
In the US, Georgia are our state of Georgia that
we right now is the largest producer comes from George's
peanut belt, which is a little little south. Um. Over
(11:07):
half of the peanuts produced domestically, do you end up
in peanut butter? Making one twelve ounce jar takes five
hundred and forty peanuts. Oh yeah, Okay. However, in two
thousand twelve, US peanut farmers churned out over six point
one billion pounds of peanuts, So I quite a lot
of peanuts. Yeah, Peanuts and peanut butter are a big
(11:30):
thing in the US. Not one but two US presidents
were peanut farmers, which out of forty five is pretty impressive.
Thomas Jefferson and Jimmy Carter should mention if you got
that Bingo card. Get it out because this episode has
a lot around of American homes contain a jar or
more of peanut butter. That's me. Um and I side note,
(11:55):
I was sort of kind of dating this dude once
while I was working in Belgium and one I was
feeling homesick and he made me a meal of what
he considered traditional American foods and this included mac and
cheese and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and it was
really quite lovely. Um. And it's expensive over there, it's
expensive in most places I've been outside the US. UM.
(12:19):
And something similar happened when I was in China after
ran out of my traveling jar peanut butter and discovered
a tiny jar was going to run me about twenty
dollars USD, which I bought it anyway, but then another
intern ate my jar peanut butter. I still think about
that job. I haven't forgotten about it. And because of
my upset, an expat friend of mine through It was
(12:42):
the fourth of July and he made sure that they
were peanut butter and jelly sandwiches there and also pizza,
spaghetti and meatballs, hamburgers, hot dogs and mac and cheese.
So that is a very American spread. Yeah, it really is.
I hadn't really thought about it before, but yeah, it was.
It was a wonderful experience. Yeah, the average American consumes
(13:03):
about three pounds of peanut butter a year, amounting to
an annual seven hundred million pounds seven hundred million pounds
of peanut butter. To put that sort of into perspective
from we bought over five hundred and seventy eight million
jars of peanut butter. It's about one eight jars per person. Collectively,
(13:24):
all of that peanut butter is worth about eight hundred
million dollars. And if you're wondering how much of that
ends up in peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, well before
graduating from high school, most American children will have had
somewhere around fifteen hundred p b and j's. That sounds
that sounds slow to me, to be super honest. That
was my go to four years and years and years. Yeah,
(13:47):
me too. And while peanut butter is seen as American,
we are certainly not the only country that enjoys it.
In Canada, folks might need it for breakfast and Haiti,
you can find freshly made peanut butter called Mamba from
street then ners in in the Netherlands you can find
it under the name of peanut Cheese, which I really enjoy.
And in Saudi Arabia, where it's growing in popularity, largely
(14:09):
because of expats in the oil industry. It's still not
big in Europe though, and this is not for lack
of trying. On the side of the American peanut farmers,
the average r Pean eats less than a tablespoon per
year of peanut butter. I guess they've got their new Tella,
your speculus, your marmite, other things outside of peanut butter,
(14:30):
And there's all kinds of peanut butter and peanut butter
and jelly related products, and Reese's peanut butter cupt related products,
pretty much any kind of dessert you can imagine. And
also you've got van Go, Vodkas, pp and j flavored liquor. Yeah.
As sort of a publicity stunt, one researcher made perhaps
the most expensive peanut butter product, a diamond. What it
(14:53):
wasn't an edible diamond, or I mean, no more so
than any other diamond is. But yeah. A team of
German scientists who were study how Earth's mantle works ran
a number of experiments creating diamonds in the lab, and
for one of these experiments, at the behest of a
local TV station, they used peanut butter as the carbon
rich source material for creating the diamond. It apparently didn't
(15:14):
work like great, but like it kind of the whole
experiment sort of fell apart due to the amount of
off gassing that was going on, But it didn't fall
apart before that made Before they made a diamond. I
will tell you if I were ever imprisoned for stealing
(15:35):
like a piece of jewelry in a museum, it would
be a peanut butter diamond. I know that just deep
in my bones. I think we all know that deep
in our bones. Anny, Well, we've got a lot of
peanut butter history for you do. But first we're going
(15:56):
to pause to a quick break for a word from
more sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes, thank you.
Now it's time for some peanut butter history. Yes, and
some abbreviated peanut history. Extremely abbreviatedly. While the peanut plant
(16:19):
goes way back, pottery suggests possibly as far back as
three thousand, five years ago, but probably even further back
than that, like seven thousand, six hundred years ago. Peanut
butter is relatively new. Both the plant and the butter
most likely first came from Peru or Brazil roundabouts there.
In Peru, the Incans offered peanuts as sacrifices to the
(16:41):
gods and would bury them with mummies to help them
through their after while through their passage, Native South Americans
were grinding up peanuts in ancient times. In Brazil, the
indigenous tribes made a drink out of ground up peanuts
and corn. Sounds so good. I had I had to
drink like this in Japan from ending machine. It actually
was really good. You had to get over. Like for me,
(17:04):
when I take a drink, I'm expecting something probably like
sweet or crisp, and this was like very buttery, savory
experience in a can. Yeah, but it was good. The
ancient Incans and Aztecs roasted peanuts and ground them up
to make a paste. So depending on how you define
peanut butter, but you're closing in already. Um. When the
Spanish arrived to the New World, they found peanuts as
(17:26):
far north as Mexico. From there, the Spanish brought the
peanut back with them to Europe, and with the help
of traders and explorers, the peanut made the journey to
Asia and Africa. Portugal promoted the spread of peanuts in
Africa because at the time Sub Saharan Africa did not
have much in the way of an wheel plant. Peanuts
are about fifty percent oil, so um and it's from Africa,
(17:48):
not South America that the peanut arrived to North America
in the seventeen hundreds through slave ships from West Africa
sent to the British colonies. Peanuts were most likely fed
to slaves to survive the journey um and they weren't
the easiest crop to grow in North America at the time,
and most of what they could grow they allocated to
their livestock or to the poor. And there's someone we
(18:11):
got to talk about in this conversation because his name
frequently comes up when talking about peanuts, and that is
George Washington Carver. Once a slave, Carver used his new
found freedom to become a successful botanist, even in the
face of all the obstacles designed to keep African Americans
from success and we're talking meeting with world leaders like
(18:32):
Gandhi and Roosevelt level of success. Poor Southern Southerners all
over benefited from his innovative crop rotation system, primarily rotating
big crops like tobacco and cotton out for lesser grown
cops like peanuts, because those first two things deplete the soil,
but peanuts give a lot back to it. Exactly. Doing
this involved a lot of educating people about all the
(18:54):
things peanuts were good for. Don't you want to grow them?
They do all of this, and Carver came up with
over three hundred ways to use up peanuts, both food
wise and industry wise, from peanut paint to peanut laxatives.
He imagined a world where you could fuel cars with peanuts,
you could make a real substitute with peanuts, asparagus substitute
with peanuts, and peanut orange punch. But out of all
(19:17):
of those three hundred things, peanut butter was not one
of the things he invented. Uh. Yeah, it's frequently attributed
to him, but he did not did not invent it.
He did have a recipe for peanut paste in the
nineteen sixteen bulletin, similar to what the Aztecs and Incans
had been doing. Carvers called for pulverizing roasted peanuts and
a meat grinder, but not quite peanut butter yet. Um
(19:41):
and Ken Jennings of our sister podcast, Omnibus wrote an
entire article about this if you're interested of all the
things he came up to do with peanuts, which is
really it's overwhelming and terrific. But if Carver didn't invent
the peanut butter, who did? Who? Indeed who? Indeed, you're
not going to believe this, but some people credit John
(20:06):
Harvey kill Killogg. Yes, that killog don dun villainous Kellogg,
one of my historical nemeses, may be invented one of
my favorite foods. My brain was like, this cannot be,
this cannot be. In he patented a method of using
(20:28):
raw pey nuts to make pretty much peanut butter as
a non ut chewable protein source for the wealthy attendees
of John Harvey Kellogg's Western Health Reform Institute, or for
patients without teeth, or for both. Um, but history suggests
it was around before that. I think I can white
(20:50):
my brow. Yeah, yeah, because the whole year before that, Yes,
in businessman out of St. Louis by the name of
George Bale produced and commercially old the first peanut butter.
But some my histories dispute at Lauren, Oh no, it's
still I'm kind of clinging to the cling away away um.
(21:10):
So he's a contender. Some of the others that you
might see. Other inventors you might see credited for coming
up with peanut butter um as Marcellus Gilmore of Canada
patented a peanut paste made with roasted peanuts mailed between
two hot services. In another St. Louis peanut butter innovation
came from Dr Ambrose and his patent for a peanut
(21:33):
butter making machine. So there's a lot of a lot
of names in the mix. Whatever the case. Peanut butter
could be found at St. Louis's nineteen o four World Fare,
where it coffee Eye of company's Beechnut and High, who
then made peanut butter available nationally. At first, peanut butter
was a luxury food served in tea rooms along with
(21:54):
pimiento cheese, watercress, and celery on crackers. Which is really
funny because I remember when I was reading that article
the author was kind of like could you imagine? But
to me that sounds like I think all of those
pairings are kind of still around today, common in the
South anyway. Yeah, and like peanut butter and cheese, peanut
butter and celery, that's a pretty popular snack, yeah anyway. Um,
(22:14):
but it didn't stay relegated to the wealthy for long. Um.
Just three years later, in nineteen o seven, companies were
producing thirty four million pounds of peanut butter, and for context,
in that number was two million pounds. That boom, A
drastic jump. The next step, and peanut butter's evolution, came
in ninety two with Joseph rose Field and his discovery
(22:36):
of a method to prevent peanut butter from separating and
going rancid. To do this, rose Field converted peanut oil
into a saturated fat. This both kept peanut butter from
separating and also didn't stick to the roof of your
mouth as much, but it did sacrifice on some health
depending on who you ask in. He licensed this process
(22:57):
out to a company behind a peanut butter brand. You
probably heard of Peter pen Tins of peanut butter because
peanut butter was sold and metal tins before the wartime
required all the metal and before you know, plastics were true, yes,
boasted on the front, improved by hydrogenation. In Roseveld started
(23:20):
producing his own peanut butter that he called Skippy. As
the American economy became more commercial, peanut butter became more
accessible for lower income families. This is when more sugar
was introduced to the mix to appeal to kids. And
speaking of sugar, let's talk about Reese's Peanut butter Cup.
(23:41):
Is this a thing that like you got you got
flack four from a very young age. Yes, but I
I I went with it. I said that I was
like the heiress of the company. And kids believed me
because silly kids, and a part of me hoped inside
that maybe I really was. Yeah, alas they haven't called
you yet, not yet. Maybe this is They're gonna be
(24:03):
like there she is, she has we been looking for
her forever. It's like my princess diary tree. Yes, all right.
In Reese's Peanut butter Cup made its debut, it showed
up on shelves and here is a nutshell or a
candy shell story of how that happened. Former Hershey employee
(24:25):
H B. Reese founded Reese's in nineteen twenty three, and
of note, he was the father of sixteen children or
ten depending on your source, or possibly it was ten
surviving children, but either way, a lot of tru yeah,
and this is why he was looking to make some
money by getting in the chocolate business. Um. When they
first entered the market, peanut butter cups were sometimes called
(24:47):
penny cups because they only cost one cent, and they
were kind of an instant hit. According to family legend,
the overroasting of the peanuts um they made their own
peanut butter was the secret. Reese oversaw the construction of
a one hundred thousand square foot factory on Chocolate Avenue
and Hershey, Pennsylvania. We have got to visit hershe goodness.
(25:08):
It wasn't until nineteen three customers could buy the cups individually,
because before that they came in an assortment are in
bulk for store displays. But people specifically wanted the Reese's
peanut butter cup. The company turned out other things to
like raising clusters, or at least they did until the
scarcity brought on by World War Two forced them to
focus solely on the cups. Their most successful product, and
(25:30):
it helps that peanut butter wasn't rationed and automation made
production easier and cheaper. One story goes, the situation got
so dire the sheriff came looking for Reese for unpaid
bills and found that Reset absconded from as far the
consolidation of product paid off, but Reese died suddenly of
a heart attack in nineteen fifty six. Once seven years
(25:51):
had passed, six of Reese's sons sold the hb Rees
Candy Company to Hershey's Chocolate Company for twenty three point
five million in nineteen sixty three. The Reese's children also
got a five percent share in the company, worth today
about one billion dollars. Who billion dollars um? Milton her
(26:12):
She was a big fan of races. There was a
rumor that he had a secret stash in his desk,
and he saw the company before her. She's bought it
as a customer instead of a competitor, since the cups
used her She's Chocolate, Reese and Milton Hershey are buried
meters apart in the Hershey Cemetery. Yeah, Reese's have branched
out beyond peanut butter, filling since her she's acquired them,
(26:34):
but have also spawned Reese's Pieces in Night, which do
have a different filling than the cups, Reese's Puffs, cereal,
it's Reese's for breakfast. My parents never let me try that,
never had it um and Reese's cups with Reese's Pieces
in them, and never a friend who loves these and
were the first time she showed them to me, she
cut them as if it was a fancy like piece
(26:55):
of chocolate. She cut it down the middle, and she
showed me the inside, and she said, it's like looking
at a damn sunrise. It was beautiful. These days, Reese's
are the most popular candy in America, but they're kind
of niche most everywhere else. Japan is experiencing a surge
(27:16):
in Reese's popularity, though they're like most international countries. The
cups don't come with a preservative that has been found
to do some damage to DNA and is a precursor
to stump tumors tb h Q. The u S allows
small amounts since doses of the allowed point zero two
percent are less do not seem to cause any negative
(27:36):
side effects, and that's how much is in um Reese's Cups?
Is this the allowed amount? Um? May is I love
Reese's Day. This became about by a fan petition of
believe five hundred thousand signatures. Sales of Reese's comes out
to an annual five hundred million. And yes, the film
(27:57):
et did pretty much save Reese's. P says after the
movie sales went up by six And I read one
stat that said sales of Reese's products overall went up
by three. H t came out, and yes, eminem was
Pielberg's first choice, and Mars, the company behind Eminem's, turned
them down. And if you're curious, there are way more
(28:19):
orange ones. The breakout is about orange each yellow and brown. Yeah.
When the new Harry Potter movies came out, as a kid,
I would make chocolate frogs and I would use the
same type of peanut butter filling used by Ess which
for me it was for a homemaker. It was essentially
peanut butter with with butter and powdered sugar, oh sure,
(28:42):
mixed in. Yeah. The scientific reason, by the way, that
that people love Reese's so much Reese's Cup so much
is that it's a combination of textures, the slightly chunky
peanut butter with the smooth chocolate, and so that that
novel combination, or that combination of two novel sensations makes
your brain go, oh what what what do more this? Yeah? Totally, Um, yeah,
(29:06):
there was. I found an article that was basically asking
why is there why has no one else been able
to compete with Reese's. Um, there really is. I didn't
think about it, but there's not really competitor at all. Nope,
good job, guys. Call me. I'm here. I'm waiting for
(29:27):
those royalty checks roll in. I'm pretty sure that's how
that works. Um. Okay, So Reese's peanut butter cup story
aside over, let's step back a bit to Okay. Hind's
brand peanut Butter was the first to include hydrogenated vegetable
oils on the ingredient list to solve that separation thing,
but also to make it more spreadable and longer lasting.
(29:50):
With three big brands boasting now more spreadable peanut butter
and slice bread available as well, peanut butter sandwiches. Peanut
butter sandwiches were popular food during the Great Depression. What
does that mean? Is it? Is it peanut butter jelly time.
Could it be? Is it? Is? It? It is? The
(30:14):
first written recipe for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich
appeared in the edition of Boston Cooking School, magazine of
Culinary Science and Domestic Economics. Still not quite though, because
it used peanut paste as opposed to peanut butter. It
wasn't until World World War Two that those peanut butter
sandwiches got the addition of jelly. It was included in
the Soldiers Rations, as with peanut butter and bread. Just
(30:35):
makes sense. Soldiers returned to the US after the war
and wanted to recreate some of the foods they'd had abroad,
and vola the poeb and j The standard Poe B
and J by the way, is two tablespoons each of
peanut butter and jelly. And the US, the most popular
flavor is grape boo, followed by strawberry. But when you
(30:56):
think about it, everyone probably has a really personalized favorite
crust versus no us diagonally slice, cruntry versus smooth, and
I find it kind of lovely and adorable and super
producer Dylan and I were discussing before we started podcasting
our our sandwich of choice, and they were very personal
and funny to me. Um So listeners you should send
(31:16):
in if you've got a preferred way of P V
and J. By the nineteen fifties, Thinks in Part two
big companies like ConAgra and Procter and Gamble. Peanut butter
was a billion dollar business. However, not always well on
the peanut butter worlds. A survey conducted in nineteen fifty
nine found that Jeff peanut butter was only seventy five peanuts.
(31:40):
The rest was hydrogenated oil and sugar. The survey was
all part of the FDA's ongoing struggle to rid the
shelves of inferior peanut butters. Legally, peanut butter went through
kind of an intense definition process so to keep the
oil from separating. Producers want to know if they could
get away with adding glycer into the mix, and the
(32:02):
FDA was kinding me, and to specify me means that
they responded with the term peanut butter is generally understood
to mean a product consisting solely of ground roasted peanuts,
with or without a small quantity of added salt. Basically,
you could add it, but you'd have to note on
the label that you did prominently Okay, So the FDA
(32:27):
proposed that to be recognized as peanut butter, a product
had to be peanuts along with additional sweeteners. In one
they actually wanted the peanut requirement to be but found
that the average American consumer preferred a sweeter, more easily
spreadable product. Jeff Peter Pan and Skippy entered the regulations
phrase soon after. Over the next ten years a decade
(32:50):
complete with a twenty week long public evidentiary hearing with
nearly eight thousand page long transcript, the peanut butter hearing
is waged. One attorney joke that they quote put many
lawyers children through college. Most of this whole thing revolved
around a difference in a proposed peanut content of merely
(33:11):
three percent in YEP. An entire decade later, the f
d A one out, requiring more peanut content coming out
less fat. The process took so long and was so
difficult and so expensive, the f d A was like, Nope,
never again, and decided to focus less on defining foods
(33:33):
and more on safe and transparent food labeling. Without this shift,
mayonnaise may never have come to be. Oh wait, wait wait,
First we have this John Harvey Kellogg thing, and now
Manna's was able to be created because of peanut butter,
my food nemesis, my hero food led to my villain food.
(33:54):
I have so much, so much to think about. Isn't
that how the story goes? The Avengers, They've almost everyone
it's a Covia, but not that one dude's family who
tears them apart in Civil War. My brain is almost
all peanut butter, popcorn, and Marvel and Harry Potter. I
hope like two people understood that reference, but I got it. Yeah, lord,
(34:16):
it was just for you al write peanut butter. I
guess I would rather have peanut butter in the world
and deal with mayonnaise. Yeah, but I do need to
think on things. Um. And while this whole thing was
going on, Smuckers introduced a new product called goober In
(34:37):
and I llowed when I read this, and then I
realized it's still around. If you don't recognize the name,
goober is the combo of peanut butter and jelly in
one jar, usually like stripes. Yeah, you can find them
in strawberry crepe and chocolate flavors. Okay, here's another fun
side story. I can't can't mention peanut butter without mentioning
Elvis Presley. No, apparently not. Legend goes in nine six one,
(35:03):
Elvis Presley was entertaining some friends from out of town
at his home in Graceland, and these friends worked for
the Denver, Colorado Police Force. They got to talking about
a favorite sandwich of theirs back in Denver, and Elvis
did that rich person thing. I was like, you know,
that sounds good. Let's go. And they hopped on his
private jet sometime around midnight and left for Denver, and
(35:23):
the couple that owned the restaurant that made the sandwich
that these hungry fellows were talking about met them in
the hangar and they all spent three hours eating sandwiches
washed down with champagne. What a life. Um. The sandwich
was called the Fool's Gold Loaf, and the price tag
would run you around sixty five dollars at its highest.
And what was it to you? Ask? A hollowed out
(35:45):
loaf that was stuffed with an entire jar of peanut butter,
a jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon. Oh
my goodness. Well, and then you like slice it like
like like a peanut butter, jelly and bacon. G od
oh man, it looked I mean it looked like a
sandwich you'd get a subway, like a six edge, but
(36:05):
it was stuffed, hollowed out and stuffed. Um. Nowadays, when
you see an Elvis named sandwich is usually peanut, butter, bacon,
and banana. I find he was pretty well known for
loving peanut, butter and banana sandwiches. Um, but that's in
general where it comes from. Although his mom said he'd
eat peanut, butter, bacon and banana sandwich is pretty feverishly
according to one cookbook. I've actually never had one, but
(36:27):
I mean it sounds just nice. Well, it's pretty good.
There's a a burger joint rounds about Atlantic called the Vortex.
They have a lot of sandwiches that, um, when you read,
you're like, that's terrible for you, stunt sandwiches. Yeah, but
I want it nonetheless. Um. And they have a like
Elvis Burger and it's like a burger but peanut, butter,
(36:50):
bacon and banana. Yeah, it's good, I believe you. I mean,
it's one of those things where like three bites in
you're like, well, I've had enough. I really like it
while it lasted, but this has got to come to
an end. Um And speaking kind of health concerns, health
concerns around Peanut Better caused a sales slump in the
(37:12):
eighties and nineties, but they picked back up again in
the recession. Since it still long lasting, healthy ish, cheap
food stuff. Kids like it. However, with the dawn of
the new millennium and more and more artisanal and organic
peanut butter hitting the shelves, it's a it's a whole
new world kind of peanut butter is just it's there
(37:36):
to stay, but also doing a lot of experimentation. It's
for everybody's there's a market for anything that you're in
the market for. It's for everybody that doesn't have a
peanuts well, yes, absolutely, it's for people that it's that
can eat it without dying. These health concerns didn't stop
the opening of Manhattan's Peanut Butter and Co. It was
(38:00):
in sixteen, but they used to have all kinds of
fancy takes on the p B and J. And you
can still find the menu online if you're just kind
of curious like I was. The peanut butter jelly time
meme viral flash clip made a splash in two thousand two.
I'm not gonna sing it, but you've probably seen it.
I'm sure you know that you know what we're talking about.
If not, I guess google it. If that's how you
(38:21):
want to spend the rest of your life is having
that in your head. In the early two thousands, increasing
diagnoses of anaphylactic peanut allergies caused some school systems, mostly
in the US and Canada, but another spots worldwide to
totally ban peanut butter and other peanut products. Research, by
the way, has found that total bands don't really work.
Um schools with bands have the same number of EpiPen
(38:43):
emergencies as schools without bands, but establishing peanut free tables
in lunch rooms does work, so research to look at
if this is a cause for concerning your community. Starting
in two thousand seven, there were a number of large
scale outbreaks of salmonella due to peanut butter and other
products containing it. One of the largest of these, traced
(39:07):
to ConAgra Foods brands Peter Pan and Great Value, sickened
between six hundred and seven hundred people across forty seven
states and resulted in what the Justice Department said was
the highest criminal fine ever in a food investigation, eleven
point two million dollars. Whoa uh. Salmonella are are bacteria
(39:28):
that can infect your guts and cause all kinds of unpleasantness.
They're passed along through feces and can can hitch a
ride on meats or plants via contamination during processing. For
for a chicken breast, that might be contamination with chicken
guts during butchery. For peanuts, it might be like a
leaky roof and infected bird droppings getting into the factory.
Cooking foods to recommended temperatures usually over like a hundred
(39:50):
and thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's fifty four degrees celsius will
kill salmonella and basically all other pathogenic or disease causing bacteria.
Um And that's part of why peanuts are generally roasted
before being made into peanut butter. I mean, the other
reason is that it makes them tasty. But yeah, However,
if the bacteria get into peanut butter after that roasting
(40:13):
part of the process, it's like game over, man, It's
it's bad news. Um uh. Fats tend to protect these microbes.
From the acids of our stomach that might otherwise kill them.
So food safety experts generally agreed that that eleven point
two million dollar fine in that peter Pan case was
a really good thing. Is it hopefully put them and
other big manufacturers on their toes, Hey buddies, let's watch
(40:37):
out for this one. Yeah, yeah, I remember that because
I believe there's a big peter Pan factory in Georgia. Yeah,
it was from one of the Georgia facilities. Basically, as
far as I'm aware, all of the major outbreaks were
from Georgia facilities. But that's not terribly surprising because we're
the largest producers. So yeah, I remember it, though it's like,
(41:00):
oh yeah, there was a huge recall. Yeah, the news
broken like two thousand seven. Then they recalled all of
their peanut butter that had been made back to Yeah
that's massive. Yeah. Uh. These days, snack and recipe sized
portions individual cups of peanut butter are pretty common in
grossery stores, tapping into those convenience markets. Yeah, and of course,
(41:22):
researchers are trying to build better peanut butter with better peanuts.
Newly developed varieties are more disease resistant stay fresh longer,
and have a higher percentage of the good fats. M
m m m m m m m uh. And that's
verging on science, but we have not quite reached our
science portion yet yet. We will do. After a quick
(41:45):
break for a word from our sponsor, and we're back.
Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you. So Scientifically speaking, peanut
butter is pretty cool for a number of reasons. It's
(42:05):
high fat and low water content mean that it is
an unfriendly environment for bacteria and molds to grow in,
even for prolonged periods hanging out at room temperature. And
by low water content, I mean like really low, like
peanut butter is only about two percent water. The oils
in it, the unsaturated oils in it, anyway, will start
to go rancid after a year or so a room temperature,
(42:25):
but that's generally all you really have to worry about.
And this this is going to be a sidebar about rancidity.
Rancidity sidebar that sounds like a band and I want
to go to their show. I'm pretty sure I've been
to that show, all right. Rancidity is what happens when
(42:48):
unsaturated oils interact with oxygen. The the oxygen breaks down
some of the lipid compounds, turning the tasty kind of bright,
fatty flavors into these gross, sour, bitter a sheet or
even soapy flavors bad times. And this process can be
kick started by exposure to air. Of course, the oxygen
(43:09):
is in the air, but also heat, light, and humidity
will speed it up. And it's not just when an
oil is like old that um. Have you ever noticed
that kind of off fishy smell that you start to
get when you use the same pan of oil to
fry like a whole bunch of batches of food, Even
if it's not fish, you could get that fishy note.
And that's that's rancidity. That's the heat of the oil
(43:32):
starting to make the oil, the heat of the pan
starting to make the oil go a little bit rancid.
But peanut butter resists rancidity better than many other products
because they've got a lot of vitamin E, which is
an antioxidant, which means that it can help block the
oxygen from breaking down those lipid molecules. And and don't
don't panic. Slightly rancid oils like those in old peanut
(43:55):
butter kins still be just perfectly okay to eat um,
though some of the same compounds that smell and taste
weird can also break down some of the vitamins in
the product, making it less nutritious, and there have been
cases of like very rancid oils causing digestive upset. I
mean basically, if it smells bad or tastes bad, don't
don't eat it. Pretty decent, decent advice, except for like
(44:19):
my favorite cheeses, true and beers and maybe pickles and
a lot of other things. But in the case of
maybe peanut butter oils, yes, yes. To prevent the rancidity
of peanut butter and other oil based products, including oils, um,
store them tightly sealed in a cool, dry, dark place,
(44:42):
you know, like a cupboard. Oh yeah, maybe not like
right over the stove. Yeah. Yeah. Um. Storing peanut butter
in the fridge will extend its lifespan, but it's not necessary. Yeah,
especially if you're going through it, like in less than
a year. I was about to say, Dylan was like,
how much do you think you've out through? I go
about through two or three jars here, And I was like,
(45:03):
I'm pretty sure I go through at least one on one.
I don't think I have to worry about this. Yeah, no, no, no, no,
you're you're absolutely fine. UM. But yeah, the whole rancidity
issue is part of why manufacturers will add a little
bit of those saturated fats in to um to to
a get get the emulsion going where it's going to
be a smooth, consistent product in the jar without doing
(45:24):
that separation of oils that you see in natural peanut
butters and be to um to to help offset the UH.
The tendency of those unsaturated oils that are naturally in
peanuts from going rancid, yes, UM peanut butters, shelf stability
and high energy density from all that oil content also
make it a great candidate for emergency nutritive care UH.
(45:49):
During the nineteen nineties, in the midst of hunger epidemics
around the world, the French Institute of Research for Development
and food manufacturer Nutriset developed what would be the first
peanut bay ready to Use Therapeutic food UM or are
U t F, which is sort of like an m
r E, a meal ready to eat intended not as
a ration but for treating severe acute malnutrition, and it's
(46:14):
a packet of basically like super peanut butter um ground peanuts,
sugar and oil, plus milk powder for protein and added
vitamins and minerals and these. The stuff has a leg
up on other therapeutic foods because it doesn't require preparation
or water. You could just hand them out to families
who can use them at home, and they pack about
five calories into this really small unit. If you've ever
(46:36):
seen a photo of a of a hungry kid eating
from like a brightly colored packet since the bid nineties,
it was probably a peanut based our ut f um,
though other lagoons like like chickpeas and lentils are used,
and organizations like UNICEF distribute a lot of it, some
thirty five thousand metric tons per year, which is enough
(46:56):
to treat about two point five million children. It's not
the best long term plan because it's it's expensive do
that milk powder. Um. You know, it's foreign aid based,
which isn't helping people UM in the long term, and
it's better for for emergencies than as a permanent nutritional supplement.
But it's pretty great that it exists. Yeah, absolutely, UM
(47:20):
and I we didn't really go into this but from
what I have read doing the research for this, and
also kind of outside because I do love peanut butter,
so I'll read pretty much any of like peanut butter. Um,
there's no real difference peanut butter, says organic. UM Like
health wise, there's at least not a lot of proved
(47:44):
to back that up. We still we still need a
whole episode about organics and what that term doesn't does
not mean um in the United States, because it means
that certain kinds of treatments can't be applied two plants.
But yeah, others still can. Yeah, but if you like,
(48:05):
I mean, it's usually more expensive, um the work in
it kind of peanut butter. But I do have an
organic kind of peanut butter that I just prefer so,
you know, I mean from the manufacturing process probably not
from yeah, yeah, yeah, just taste wise. I like it.
I like a lot of peanut butters. Though this has
(48:25):
been a very delightful episode for me. I'm sorry, Lauren,
you did get to try a little bit on that
sand Yeah, No, I mean I can. I can have
a little bit without it upsetting my stomach too much.
It's it's just it's an intolerance, not a not an allergy,
but so I can I can have a little that. Um.
It was so good though, like I had forgotten because
I've been having like almond butter and cashe butter, stuff
(48:45):
like that sun butter. And it's not the same, y'all.
It's not. It's delicious in its own right, but it's
not the same. It's not the same. Um that story
I told earlier about the guy in Europe who did
that like American theme meal for me my um. I
was living with another exchange student who um had a
(49:06):
very severe peanut allergy and I wasn't allowed to have
peanut butter in the house. UM, so I have my
emergency jar and I remember having a moment of like
like sad music is playing. I ate all that peanut butter.
I left it at my office. There you go. But
that was another thing exacerbating my desire for peanut butter.
(49:30):
You literally couldn't. I couldn't. Oh man, Yeah, this has
been a really fun one, and there's a I definitely
really do want to come back and talk about peanuts
and peanut allergies and I really could do a whole
Just let me have a peanut butter side side podcast,
any kind of peanut butter related thing, I'll talk about it.
(49:54):
Reese's get in touch with this, right, come on. I
narrowed that down to you. I was like, Annie, this
is just kind of related to peanut butter. You need
to chill out, self contained exactly. But I couldn't stop
myself from putting a story. It's a good story, it
really is. And speaking of good stories, this brings us
(50:15):
to listen. Man, I'm not sure how that went. That
was okay, So Ashley wrote, I just listened to your
pasta episode and I wanted to share with you how
I like to eat my pasta. Similar to Annie, I
(50:38):
prefer to have my pasta somewhat without sauce. However, the
older I get, the more I'm willing to experience my
noodles smothered and sauce. However, here's how I prepare it.
Once the noodles are made, I put butter on them
to get them all slippery. Then I add salt and
pepper to taste. Once that is done, I will put
the tiniest bit of sauce on them, like literally a
teaspoon worth, and then mix the sauce into my noodles.
(50:59):
So the noodles have the tiniest bit of rendness to them. Mmmmmmmmm,
so delicious. The butter add that delicious fat taste to this,
and it's literally the best thing ever all caps. It's
hard to make a tea spoon's worth of pasta when
I make it for just myself, But when I have
a bunch of people over or I'm visiting my parents,
I'll eat my pasta this way. This sounds delicious. I did.
(51:24):
I used to like, I would scoot the noodles along
the verge of the all along the outside borders of
the sauce and get a little tinge it, just a
little hint, and uh I did love that. So I
think I'm going to try this out for sure. And again,
thanks to everyone who wrote in it's like I do
this too, and also to the people who wrote in
her like You're a monster, but it's okay. I appreciate
(51:47):
that absolutely. Um Alyssa wrote, Hi, my name is Alyssa
and I come from Guatemala. Apologies right off the bat
because my Spanish is okay, but I may or may
not butcher some of these words. Alissa and everyone else
from Spanish speaking everywhere anyway, um. I listened to your
Tomali's podcast a few weeks ago and found it very interesting.
(52:08):
Tomalies are a very important part of our culture and
we have different varieties depending on the region they are made.
I want to tell you a little bit about my
favorite Guatemalan tomalies patches uh. The massa is made out
of potatoes with the traditional chicken or pork filling, a
little spicy, and wrapped in plantain leaves. These are mostly
eaten on Thursdaysaves of patches clearly uh tomaless uh. These
(52:32):
are the most traditional, made for celebrations. The massa is
made out of a mixture of rice and corn, or
maybe just rice, which gives the tamali is a kind
of fluffy texture with the traditional plantain wrap tamalito peeling.
Traditional corn massa mixed with peeling which is a delicious
small green leaf and wrapped in corn leaves. These are
made without the meat filling. The Guatemalan corn leaf tamales
(52:55):
are traditionally bigger than the ones from Mexico and tied
over the end to avoid spilling cheetos. Traditional corn maussa
chicken filling with a ricato sauce and wrapped in corn leaves.
These are served with a special tomato sauce, a dry
crumbled cheese on top, with a little bit of onions
and celery for garnish. This sounds so good. There are many,
(53:16):
many more. Some are filled with black beans. Some are sweet, yes,
they add chocolate and plum raisins. Or the massa is
made sweet without any filling. Not a fan, but people
love them. And finally we also include these tomales actually
the ones made out of the traditional corn mesa and
make different dishes out of them. Please please, as a favor,
I want to ask you if you can give a
shout out for people to raise awareness and funds for
(53:38):
the people that have been affected by the recent volcano
eruption in Guatemala. Lots of people would really appreciate it. Absolutely. Yes,
If you google um Guatemala volcano relief then it will
be the internet will kindly hook you up with with
stuff that you can donate to or do in your area. Absolutely.
Oh yeah, those sounds so good. I'm hungry again. Now
(54:00):
I'm so hungry. Well, I think we're gonna go find
some food. Yes, oh goodness, yes, But thanks to both
of them for writing in if you would like to
write to you, Ken our emails food stuff at astaf
works dot com. We're also on social media. You can
find us on Facebook and Twitter at food stuff hs W.
Also on Instagram at food stuff. We hope to hear
(54:22):
from you. Thank you as always to super producer Dylan Fagan,
Thank you to you for listening and we hope that
lots more good things are coming your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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