Interesting facts about peanut butter

peanut butter

Peanut butter is a type of moist paste that is made of crushed roasted peanuts.

There are two kinds of peanut butter: crunchy/chunky peanut butter and smooth/creamy peanut butter.

Peanut butter is served as a spread on bread, toast, or crackers, and used to make sandwiches (notably the peanut butter and jelly sandwich). It is also used in a number of breakfast dishes and desserts, such as peanut-flavored granola, smoothies, crepes, cookies, brownies, or croissants.

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It is a healthy food that is full of nutrients.

In a 100 gram (3.5 ounces) amount, smooth peanut butter supplies 588 Calories and is composed of 50% fat, 25% protein, 20% carbohydrates.

Peanut butter is a rich source of dietary fiber, vitamin E, pantothenic acid, niacin, and vitamin B6. Also high in content are the dietary minerals manganese, magnesium, phosphorus, zinc, and copper. Peanut butter is a moderate source of thiamin, iron, and potassium.

Marcellus Gilmore Edson (1849 – 1940) of Montreal, Quebec, Canada obtained a patent for a method of producing peanut butter from roasted peanuts using heated surfaces in 1884. Edson’s cooled product had “a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment” according to his patent application which described a process of milling roasted peanuts until the peanuts reached “a fluid or semi-fluid state”.

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A physician in St. Louis, Missouri started manufacturing peanut butter commercially in 1890. Featured at the St. Louis World’s Fair as a health food, peanut butter was recommended for infants and invalids, because of its high nutritional value.

At first, peanut butter was a food for wealthy people, as it became popular as a product served at expensive health care institutes.

In 1895Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (the creator of Kellogg’s cereal) patented a process for creating peanut butter from raw peanuts.

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As the US National Peanut Board confirms, “Contrary to popular belief, George Washington Carver did not invent peanut butter.” Carver was given credit in popular folklore for many inventions that did not come out of his lab. By the time Carver published his document about peanuts, entitled “How to Grow the Peanut and 105 Ways of Preparing it For Human Consumption” in 1916, many methods of preparation of peanut butter had been developed or patented by various pharmacists, doctors, and food scientists working in the US and Canada.

In 1922, chemist Joseph Rosefield invented a process for making smooth peanut butter that kept the oil from separating by using partially hydrogenated oil. In 1928 he licensed his invention to the company that created Peter Pan peanut butter. In 1932 he began producing his own peanut butter under the name Skippy.

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A slang term for peanut butter in World War II was “monkey butter.”

In the United States, any peanut butter branded product must be at least 90 percent peanuts. It’s required by law.

It takes about 540 peanuts to make a 12-ounce (340-gram) jar of peanut butter. That’s approximately 45 peanuts per ounce (28 grams) of peanut butter.

Women and children prefer smooth/creamy, while most men opt for crunchy/chunky.

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The average American will have eaten 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches before high school graduation.

Half of the top ten selling candy bars in the US contain peanut or peanut butter.

In the Netherlands peanut butter is called pindakaas (literally “peanut cheese”) rather than pindaboter (“peanut butter”) because the word butter was a legally protected term for products that contain actual butter, prompting Calvé, the company which first marketed it in the country in 1948, to use kaas instead.

The most peanut butter eaten in one minute is 378 g, and was achieved by Andre Ortolf (Germany), in Ausburg, Bavaria, Germany, on 17 November 2017.

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The most peanut butter and jelly sandwiches eaten in one minute is 6 and was achieved by Patrick Bertoletti (USA) at Sierra Studios, in East Dundee, Illinois, USA, on 14 January 2012.

On the night of February 1, 1976, Elvis Presley took his private jet from Graceland to Denver and back in one night because he was craving an 8,000 calorie sandwich made from a hollowed out loaf filled with an entire jar of peanut butter, one jar of jelly, and a pound of bacon. The event made the Fool’s Gold Loaf sandwich famous.

Arachibutyrophobia is the fear of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of your mouth. It is often rooted in a more generalized phobia of choking (pseudodysphagia) or of sticky textures, but it may also occur alone.

Individuals diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease may lose the ability to smell peanut butter. The “Peanut Butter Test” may offer an early indication of the disease.