Savor Classics: Peanut Butter

Although peanuts have been feeding us for basically ever, peanut butter is a pretty new invention. In this classic episode, 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

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome to Savor production of I Heart Radio.
I'm Annie Reese and I'm more in Vocal Bom and
today we have a classic episode for you about peanut butter.
Oh wow. I mean, if you want to hear me
fan girl out about a food, this, this is it.

(00:30):
I love that so many of you, especially people who
are kind of new to the show, will write in
and say like, oh, I also love peanut butter. Here's
my favorite type of peanut butter. Yeah, sending me peanut
butter updates. It's thank you from the bottom of my heart.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you. And and

(00:52):
this is high key why I was thinking about this
episode right now because of Valentine's Day is upon us,
um as the marketing and advertising world is relentlessly reminding
me right now. Um. I don't know if all y'all know.
No matter whether I'm like, no matter what kind of
relationship status I'm in, I am so um overwhelmed and

(01:17):
offended by by Valentine's Day marketing m because because to me,
I think of that um, that oglof comic that's like
happy obligation Day. Like you might have romance other times,
but it's obligated. Now, it's true. It's just got a

(01:40):
lot attached to it that doesn't need to be attached.
Just a chill thing that you enjoy. That's yes, that's
the vibe. That is that should be the vibe. And
and I got a little left track there, but bringing
it back and uh, your love for peanut butter is
so pure, and so that's what I wanted to bring

(02:04):
into your ears today, dear listeners. Yes, well, thank you.
It is. It is like one of the love of
my lives. As I like that, I accidentally typoed you.
I have multiple lives, everybody, and every one of them
peanut butter is key. Yeah, it is something that I
just like, I mean, like just even thinking about it,

(02:26):
I'm getting so excited. But I love peanut butter and
it is a treat for me. Um, even though I
have so many jars. Still, uh, it's still a treat.
And it is like in a lot of candy that
I think it's sold around Bouncin's Day. So I think
it's like it's working on multiple levels. Okay, great, great, yeah, yeah.
Originally this episode is from June of eighteen, and uh,

(02:51):
we we actually got to go in the fall of
twenty nineteen and visit like peanut farms and processing plants
and like a peanut butter production plant. And oh, we
are so remiss in posting any stuff from that. We
we've been sitting like a whole pandemic happened, is what happened? Um?

(03:14):
But um, but but like it's time, like I think
that we need to dig into those archives and see
what we can do to to get because we got
a lot of great um interviews and conversations and just
weird b roll of manufacturing noises and it was. It
was a delightful experience. It was. And we got a

(03:35):
lot of really cool images because I didn't I didn't
realize the way peanut the way peanut farming works. The
images are really neat. Um. There was a stripper bus involved.
It's not what you think, but it was very very funny.
It's just that rental that happened to be available. Yeah.
But the thing is is that, as it turns out,

(03:55):
a lot of tour buses don't want to drive out
onto a peanut farm. But like the stripper bus company
was like, hecky, yeah we will. So we were just
in Dothan, Alabama with a bunch of other food writers
and chefs on the stripper bus going to peanut farms, yes,
including a chef we interviewed in Hawaii interestingly enough. Yeah,

(04:19):
and also my family on my mom's side is from Dothan, Alabama,
which was very interesting. Um. And also the smell taste
of freshly made peanut butter in a factory is overwhelmingly amazing. Oh,

(04:41):
like up here in my brain the best, one of
the best memories. So good. Yeah, but yes, we do
need to I think about it like probably once a
month that we haven't done. Yeah, you know same. Um, well, okay,
all right, Well we'll talk to our superproducers. We'll see
what we can do. It's it's like it's like largely

(05:04):
a factor of um, those sorts of episodes being such
a heavier lift um for for for our producers and
so you know, wanting to to respect their their time
and especially involved with all of the wildness of our
workflow during these pandemic times. So yeah, yeah, yes, but
we'll talk about it, we'll figure out how to do it. Yeah.

(05:26):
Oh yes, And speaking of the pandemic, um March of
when it all began, saw peanut Butter sales up seventy
over March of the previous year. Um. People, it was
one of those comfort foods, ease of use foods that

(05:49):
people really leaned into in the early pandemic days. Um.
By by April it had the trend had cooled a
little bit, or maybe people just already had an of
peanut butter um, but but it was still like like
up year over year. So yeah, I mean it's that

(06:11):
and I think during times of stress it's like nostalgic.
But also it's one of those foods you get when
the powers out or something. Sure, it's like, yeah, I
got that vibe. I definitely have jars here where my
friends love them so much, have just put like their
name on a jar of peanut butter and that's their
jar of peanut butter. Visit me right, yeah, because people

(06:37):
have their favorite types specific oh absolutely, oh absolutely, um yeah,
And this has been an issue because, as with many
other consumer products, pandemic supply chain and like worker health
issues have affected peanut butter manufacturer, so some people haven't
been able to find their favorite niche specific hype. UM

(07:01):
and a bunch of factors are going into this, like
with anything, um, you know, there's like an increased cost
of things like crop fertilizer. UM, there's also labor shortages
in the in the processing end, like the grating and
processing end, and um the price and availability of the
plastics used to make the jars um just just a
bunch of stuff. And further exacerbating this, as of summer two,

(07:25):
there were a bunch of recalls of Jiff peanut butter
products that lead to I mean not only Jiff being
off of store shelves, but then uh, there there were
shortages of other brands in stores because they hadn't been
expecting this run. Yeah yeah, um. Brands like Peter Pan
have reported that they had to like narrow their production
focused to like only the most popular or profitable products

(07:48):
in their lines. Oh yeah, dear, I'm gonna go rifle
through my my bantry after this and take stock of
what I've up. Yeah. Well, in the meantime, I guess
we should let past Annie and Lauren take it away. Hello,

(08:22):
and welcome to food Stuff. I'm Annyrees and I'm Lauren
vocal Bam, 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

(08:43):
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 like I have this like little pouches just ready
to go. I have a jar. Um. I normally don't
dig into it, but it's there just in case, just

(09:07):
in case, because I have been I've been in an
emergency peanut butter situation oh times, especially when traveling abroad
where it's hard to find. Oh. Absolutely, I always carry
a jar peanut butter. Good. Yes, thank you, it's just smart.
Just be prepared. Yeah, people with peanut allergies stay away
from me. And speaking of peanuts plus peanut allergies is

(09:30):
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 three hour long thing

(09:52):
if we don't rain ourselves in right. But if at
the end of this you you want to hear some
more Stephie 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, peanut butter? What

(10:18):
is it? It's amazing, end of podcast. Thank you for
joining us. That's it's this has been food stuff thanks
to Dylan Pagan, us super producer. Peanut butter is kind
of a butter of peanuts, if you will, um, but
I would like to start out with the peanut is

(10:38):
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 the specific
genus and species arack is Hypogaia and Hypogaea. Uh okay.

(11:00):
Because peanuts grow underground, the plant itself looks like the
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,

(11:23):
like like the ropes off of a Bangan tree, and
in forms under the ground. A peanut um a woody
shell in case in 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. Peanut butter therefore, is a shelled,

(11:46):
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 little high oil content, if you want to
homogenize the thing that going to create an emulsion with
some hydrogenated oil. Yes, it's sweet and savory and salty,

(12:07):
and as Annie is like making little like like twitter
painted faces 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, remember my peanut butter
ice sand forever ago, and the listener wrote in the

(12:29):
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 to obtain a crop
of whole peanuts in their shells. It crack those shells

(12:51):
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 about six minutes
until they're done. Yeah. Um. And done is when a

(13:16):
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. Both
processes kind of have their downsides. Heat blanching removes some

(13:36):
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
those less fine bits um, or by removing a rib

(13:58):
from the grinder and thing of the grinder like a
like a giant screw that has a bunch of 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 creamy, slightly chunky combination m h.
And then you pack it. Uh. One of the enemies

(14:21):
of peanut butter is oxygen. More on that later. So
makers 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
otherwise like adulterated peanut butter, which I mean, you know,

(14:44):
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
this is like, and he said, totally easy to do
at home. You just roast your own peanuts in the oven,

(15:04):
grind him a blender food processor. Um. Towards the end,
you throw in as some sugar, salts and oil, any
other flavorings you want, and 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 that's a kitchen spelled without the final E

(15:25):
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 a it's a little bit contentious about
how nutritious peanut butter is for you, because it is
really high in fat, but both good fats and bad fats.
It's about fat in terms of like calories proportion um.

(15:51):
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 and of protein. Yes, because your
body doesn't want just butter. It wants it well, but

(16:13):
it does not need it well. Your brain wants it
makes your brain feel better than I think it makes
your body feel for me anyway, Well, eventually I'm like,
can I have a salad? Can I please just have
a peanut butter does also have a good amount of
several vitamins and minerals, including vitamins E and B six

(16:33):
nice and follate, maganese, 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 brings up
these very points. UM, so you know, like heat your

(16:54):
serving sizes, don't eat just peanut butter for the rest
of your life, You're gonna get scurvy. Yeah, my marine
was like, but but what a great way to go
We um, as you've probably heard of speak about. We
recently took a road trip UM Dylan, Lauren and I

(17:15):
super producer Dylan and UM. 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 ad on segments
or bonus episodes. We talked about peanut butter for probably

(17:38):
ten minutes and super producer Dylan used to eat half
a jar of Skippy a day. Essentially, all right, I'd
forgotten about that story. Oh, we'll have to we'll have
to pull up the audio for that. Oh we will. Um,
maybe that'll be our peanut Bonus episode, her peanut bonus episode.

(17:59):
And I, 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 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

(18:22):
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 what's what's your preferred peanut butter. It's funny
because I feel like 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,

(18:47):
but I have a jar of Jeff 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, 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.

(19:07):
That would be China and India. In the US, Georgia
are our state of Georgia that we are in right
now is the largest producer comes from George's peanut belt,
which is a little little south. Um. Over 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,

(19:33):
in two thousand twelve, US peanut farmers turned out over
six point one billion pounds of peanuts, so I quite
a lot of peanuts. Yeah, peanuts and peanut butter are
big 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

(19:55):
you got that bingo card, get it out because this
episode has a lot around it and four of American
homes contain a jar or more of peanut butter and
that's me, um and I a side note, I was
sort of kind of dating this dude once while I
was working in Belgium, and one night I was feeling
homesick and he made me a meal of what he

(20:17):
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. And
something similar happened when I was in China a fter
I ran out of my traveling jar peanut butter and

(20:37):
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 of peanut butter. I still
think about that, John, I haven't forgotten about it. And
because of my upset, an expat friend of mine through
It was the fourth of July, and he made sure

(20:58):
that they were peanut butter and jelly's ouches 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 about three pounds of peanut butter
a year, amounting to an annual seven hundred million pounds

(21:21):
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, all of that peanut
butter is worth about eight hundred billion dollars. And if

(21:42):
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 at me too. And while

(22:02):
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 vendors, and 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 because of expats in

(22:24):
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 your pean
eats less than a tablespoon per year peanut butter. I
guess they got their new Tella, your speculus, your marmite,
other things outside of peanut butter, And there's all kinds

(22:44):
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, P B 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

(23:06):
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 studying 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 like
carbon rich source material for creating the diamond. It apparently

(23:27):
didn't 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

(23:48):
stealing 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 bow. And Danny, Well, we've got a
lot of peanut butter and history for you. We do.
But first we're gonna pause to a quick break for

(24:10):
a word from our 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 abbreviated. While the peanut

(24:32):
plant 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

(24:54):
gods and would bury them with mummies to help them
through their after while through their message. 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 a vending machine. It
actually was really good. You had to get over. Like

(25:16):
for me, 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

(25:39):
as 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 fift oil so um. And it's from Africa,

(26:02):
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

(26:24):
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

(26:45):
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

(27:07):
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 asparages, substitute
with peanuts and peanut orange punch. But out of all

(27:30):
of those three hundred things, peanut butter was not one
of the things he invented. 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 Incin's had been doing.
Carvers called for pulverizing roasted peanuts and a meat grinder,

(27:51):
but not quite peanut butter yet. Um 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

(28:14):
believe this, but some people credit John Harvey kill Killogg. Yes,
that killog don dun villainous Kellogg, one of my historical nemesses,
may be invented one of my favorite foods. My brain
was like, this cannot be, this cannot be. He patented

(28:41):
a method of using raw peanuts to make pretty much
peanut butter as a non at 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 is just it was around before that. I think

(29:01):
I can wipe my brow. Yeah, yeah, because the whole
year before that, Yes, in a businessman out of St.
Louis by the name of George Bale produced and commercially
sold the first peanut butter, but some historians disputed at Lauren, No,
it's still I'm going to cling to the away um,

(29:23):
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 mail between
two hot services in eighty four. Another St. Louis peanut
butter innovation came from Dr Ambrose and his patent for

(29:46):
a peanut 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,

(30:06):
along with pimento cheese, watercrests, 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 celery, that's a pretty popular snack. Yeah anyway. Um,

(30:27):
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 number was two million pounds. Boom, a drastic jump.
The next step in peanut butter's evolution came in Nino

(30:47):
with Joseph rose Field and his discovery 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 out to a company

(31:11):
behind a peanut butter brand. You've probably heard of Peter
Pen Tins of peanut butter, because peanut butter was SLD
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 two, Roseveld started producing

(31:34):
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. Is

(31:55):
this the 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 that alas, they haven't called
you yet, not yet. Maybe this is They're gonna be

(32:17):
like there she is. She hasn't been looking for her forever.
It's like my princess diary tread yes, all right. In
Reese's Peanut Buttercup 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 hb Rees founded

(32:39):
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 yeah. And this is why he was
looking to make some money by getting in the chocolate business. Okay. Um.
When they first entered the market, peanut butter cups were

(33:00):
sometimes called 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 Hershey.

(33:21):
It wasn't until nine customers could buy the cups individually,
because before that they came in an assortment or 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

(33:43):
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 pay it off, but Reese died suddenly
of a heart attack in nineteen fifty six. Once seven

(34:04):
years had passed, six of Riese'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

(34:25):
her 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 hers She's acquired them,

(34:47):
but have also spawned Reese's pieces in ninety eight, which
do have a different filling than the cups, Reese's puff 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 have 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

(35:08):
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

(35:29):
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 stoke 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

(35:50):
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 came about by a fan petition believe
five hundred thousand signatures. Sales of Reese's comes out to
an annual five hundred million. And yes, the film et

(36:11):
did pretty much save Reese's pieces. 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
hundred came out, And yes, Eminem was to be Albert's
first choice and Mars the company behind him, and M's
turned him down. And if you're curious, there are way

(36:32):
more 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 Reese's, which for me it was for a homemaker.
It was essentially peanut butter with with butter and powdered

(36:54):
sugar 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

(37:15):
your brain go oh what what? What do that? This? Yeah? Totally, um,
yeah 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 a competitor
at all. Nope, good job, guys. Call me. I'm here.

(37:39):
I'm waiting for 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. Hinz 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

(38:01):
and longer lasting. With three big brands boasting now more
spreadable peanut butter and sliced 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?

(38:25):
It is the first written recipe for the peanut butter
and jelly sandwich appeared in the edition of Boston Cooking
School magazine of Culinary Size 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

(38:45):
was included in the Soldiers Rations, as with peanut butter
and bread. Just 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 P B and J.
The standard pe B and J, by the way, is
two tablespoons each of peanut butter and jelly. In the US,
the most popular flavor is grape boom, followed by strawberry.

(39:09):
But when you think about it, everyone probably has a
really personalized favorite crust versus no crust, 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 are our sandwich of choice and they
were very personal and funny to me. Um So listeners

(39:29):
you should send in if you get a preferred way
let A, 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 the peanut butter world. A survey conducted
in nineteen fifty nine found that Jeff peanut butter was

(39:51):
only seventy five peanuts, the rest was hydrogenated oil and sugar.
The survey was all part of the f d a's
on going 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

(40:11):
know if they could get away with adding glycer into
the mix. And the FDA was calling 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

(40:34):
have to note on the label that you did. Prominently okay,
So the FDA proposed that to be recognized as peanut butter,
a product had to be peanuts along with additional sweeteners.
They actually wanted the peanut requirement to be, but found
that the average American consumer preferred a sweeter, more easily

(40:54):
spreadable product. Jeff Peter Pan and Skippy entered the regulations
pray soon after. Over the next ten years a decade
complete with a twenty week long public evidentiary hearing with
nearly eight thousand page long transcript, the peanut butter hearings waged.
One attorney joked that they quote put many lawyers children

(41:17):
through college. Most of this whole thing revolved around a
difference in a proposed peanut content of merely three percent
in YEP. An entire decade later, the f d A
one out requiring or more peanut content coming out less fat.
The process took so long and was so difficult and

(41:40):
so expensive, the f d A was like Nope, never again,
and decided to focus less on defining foods and more
on safe and transparent food labeling. Without this shift, mayonnaise
may never have come to be. Oh wait, wait, wait wait,
first we have this John Harvey Kellogg thing, and now
Manna's was able to be created because of peanut butter.

(42:02):
My food nemessis my hero food led to my villain food.
I have so much, so much to think about. Isn't
that how the story goes? The Avengers, they've almost everyone,
it's the 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

(42:24):
hope like two people understood that reference, but I got it. Yeah,
it was just for you. Thank 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

(42:44):
was going on, Smuckers introduced a new product called goober
In 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. You can find them in
strawberry crepe and chocolate flavors. Okay, here's another fun side story.

(43:08):
I can't can't mention peanut butter without mentioning Elvis Presley. No,
apparently not legend goes. In nine six one, 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

(43:28):
rich person thing and was like, you know, that sounds good.
Let's go. And they hopped on his private jet sometime
around midnight and left for Denver. 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, washdown with champagne. What
a life. Um. The sandwich was called the Fool's Gold Loaf,

(43:51):
and the price tag would run you around sixty five
dollars at its highest. And what was it to ask?
A holod out loaf that was off 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 ode. Oh man, it looked I mean

(44:14):
it looked like a sandwich you'd get a subway like
a six inch but 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

(44:35):
he'd eat peanut butter, bacon and banana sandwich is pretty
feverishly according to one cookbook. I've actually never had one,
but 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

(44:56):
I want it nonetheless. Um. And they have a like
Elvis Burger and it's like a burger that got peanut butter,
bacon in 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 liked it
while it lasted, but this has got to come to

(45:16):
an end. Um. And speaking kind of health concerns, health
concerns around. Peanut Better caused a sales slump in the
eighties and nineties, but they picked back up again in
the recession since 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

(45:39):
butter hitting the shelves, it's a it's a whole new
world kind of peanut butter is just it's there 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 peanut well, yes, absolutely,

(46:02):
it's for people that it's that can eat it without dying.
There you go. These health concerns didn't stop the opening
of Manhattan's Peanut Butter and Co. In It closed in
but they used to have all kinds of fancy takes
on the PB 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

(46:24):
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 want to
spend the rest of your life is having that in
your head. In the early two thousand's, increasing diagnoses of
anaphylactic peanut allergies caused some school systems, mostly in the

(46:45):
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 EPI penn emergencies
as schools without bands, but establishing peanut free tables in
lunch rooms does work, so research to look at if

(47:06):
this is a cause for concerning your community. Starting in
two thousand seven, there were a number of a large
scale outbreaks of salmonella due to peanut butter and other
products containing it. One of the largest of these, traced
to ConAgra Foods brands Peter Pan and Great Value, sickened
between six hundred and seven hundred people across forty seven

(47:28):
states and resulted in what the Justice Department said was
the highest criminal fine ever in a food investigation eleven
point to million dollars. Whoa uh Salmonella are are bacteria
that can infect your guts and cause all kinds of unpleasantness.
They're passed along through feces and can can hit your
ride on meats or plants via contamination during processing. For

(47:51):
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 too. Recommended temperatures usually over like a D
and thirty degrees fahrenheit. That's fifty four degrees celsius will
kill salmonella and basically all other pathogenic or disease causing bacteria. Um.

(48:14):
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 part
of the process, it's like game over, man, It's it's
bad news. Um uh. Fats tend to protect these microbes

(48:34):
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. Yeah, hey, buddies, let's
watch out for this one. Yeah, yeah, I remember that
because I believe there's a big peter Pan factory in Georgia. Yeah,

(48:57):
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. Oh yeah,
there was a huge recall. Yeah, the news broken like
two thousand seven and they recalled all of their peanut

(49:18):
butter that had been made back too. 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, researchers are trying
to build better peanut butter with better peanuts. Newly developed

(49:41):
varieties are more dizse resistant, stay fresh longer, and have
a higher percentage of the good fats. M m m
m m m m uh. And that's verging on science.
But we have not quite reached our science portion yet.
Not yet. We will do. After a quick break for
a word from our sponsor, and we're back. Thank you sponsor, Yes,

(50:11):
thank you. So. Scientifically speaking, peanut butter is pretty cool
for a number of reasons. It's 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 water. The oils in it, the unsaturated oils

(50:35):
in it anyway, will start to go rancid after a
year or so a room temperature, 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,

(50:57):
all right. Rancidity is what happens when 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, fishy or even soapy flavors
bad times, and this process can be kick started by

(51:20):
exposure to air. Of course, the oxygen is in the air,
but also a 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,

(51:41):
but you can get that fishy note. And that's that's rancidity.
That's the heat of the oil starting to make the
heat of the pants 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 they gen from breaking down at those

(52:01):
lipid molecules. And and don't don't panic. Slightly rancid oils
like those in old peanut butter can 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

(52:22):
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 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

(52:45):
prevent the rancidity of peanut butter and other oil based products,
including oils, um store them tightly sealed in a cool, dry,
dark place, you know, like a cupboard. Oh yeah, maybe
not like right over the stove. 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

(53:09):
in less than a year. I was about to say.
Dylan was like, how much do you think you go through?
I go about through two or three jars here, And
I was like, I'm pretty sure I go through at
least one a month. 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 rincidity issue is
part of why manufacturers will add a little bit of
those saturated fats in to um to to a get

(53:32):
get the emulsion going where it's going to be a smooth,
consistent product in the jar without doing 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

(53:54):
energy density from all that oil content also make it
a great candidate for emergency nutritive care UH. During the
nineteen nineties, in the midst of of hunger epidemics around
the world, the French Institute of Research for Development and
food manufacturer Nutriset developed what would be the first peanut
based ready to use Therapeutic food UM or r U

(54:17):
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 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 This stuff has a leg up

(54:38):
on other therapeutic foods because it doesn't require preparation or water.
You can 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 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

(54:58):
lagoons like like chick peas and mentals are used, and
organizations like UNICEF distribute a lot of it, some thirty
five thousand metric tons per year, which is enough 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

(55:19):
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.
And I we didn't really go into this, but from
what I have read doing the research for this, and

(55:41):
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 of peanut butter, says organic. Um.
Like health wise, there's at least not a lot of
proved to back that up. Currently, we still we still
need a whole episode about organics and what that term

(56:05):
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, I mean, it's usually more expensive. Um they're
working in it kind of peanut butter. But I do
have an organic kind of peanut butter that I just

(56:25):
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 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

(56:46):
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
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

(57:07):
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
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

(57:30):
what do I do? 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. You literally couldn't. I couldn't. Oh man. Yeah,
this has been a really fun one, and there's a

(57:51):
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. Reese's get in touch with this, right,
come on. I narrowed that down to you. It was like,

(58:14):
any this is just kind of related to peanut butter.
You needed chill out self exactly, but I couldn't stop
myself from putting a story. It's a good story, it
really is. And that brings us to the end of
this classic episode. I truly hope you got even a

(58:35):
fraction of the enjoyment I got out of doing it
and honestly just talking about it again, like smile on
my face, very happy. Oh oh, absolutely absolutely, um uh,
I do I do want to put in here. It's
so it's so interesting going back and listening to stuff
from even I mean is like a long time ago,

(58:57):
but it's not that long ago. Um. However, there's there's
a few things, you know, we and everyone are continually
learning and growing, and so you know, like some of
the language that we used around enslaved people in this
episode is not what we would use today. And also, um,
you know just heck j k rowling right to heck.

(59:18):
Just you know, uh that that is a statement that
I make completely comfortably. Um, and especially right now when
the controversy about buying a new product from that franchise
um that she is famous for is really raging. Um,
if you are not on Twitter, maybe you have not heard.

(59:40):
But yes there's a controversy about that. Um so yeah, um.
You know things are complicated, but we still find the
joy where we can. And again, the joy of peanut
butter is pure. It is, it is h and I

(01:00:01):
hope listeners if you have any peanut butter recipes, peanut
butter opinions, thoughts about peanut butter, I would love to
hear from you. Oh yeah, oh, it would be It
would be a gift, truly, it truly would. You can

(01:00:22):
email us at Hello at savor pod dot com. You
can also find us on social media. We are on Twitter, Facebook,
and Instagram at saver pod, and we do hope to
hear from you. Savor is production of my Heart Radio.
For more podcasts my Heart Radio, you can visit the
I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen
to your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super

(01:00:43):
producers Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way.