Speaker 1: Hi, everybody. It's Chuck And in COVID time it's May fourteenth,
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, and on this Saturday Select, we're going to
Speaker 1: bring you an episode called How Peanut Butter Works. And boy,
Speaker 1: oh boy, I remember loving this one. I think I
Speaker 1: was eating a lot of peanut butter at the time
Speaker 1: during COVID because we had a good store of it already,
Speaker 1: and I love peanut butter, and I think we talk
Speaker 1: a lot about how much we both like peanut butter.
Speaker 1: In this episode, it's bound to make you hungry. And
Speaker 1: the good news is now you can just go right
Speaker 1: to your store and pick it up and smile a
Speaker 1: real smile at people, just not hidden behind a mask.
Speaker 1: So let's celebrate that. Go out and get some peanut
Speaker 1: butter and smile. Welcome to Stuff you should Know, a
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to peanut Butter Jelly Time. I'm Josh.
Speaker 2: There's Chuck. We haven't seen Jerry in a while. If
Speaker 2: you have seen Jerry, please tell her to call home.
Speaker 2: And this is you should know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jerry, she sent out in a smoke signal that
Speaker 1: said send me, so she did.
Speaker 2: She did, and we send some on donkey back in
Speaker 2: that general direction.
Speaker 1: Are you peanut butter or jelly in this scenario?
Speaker 2: I want to be peanut buttered. You always make me
Speaker 2: be jelly.
Speaker 1: Well, I think we should level set here at the beginning, okay,
Speaker 1: and talk about if you like peanut butter, which is
Speaker 1: your favorite, and then what you like how do you
Speaker 1: utilize it?
Speaker 2: Okay? My name is Josh C. And I love peanut butter. Okay,
Speaker 2: almost only smooth. I will eat chunky the if civilization
Speaker 2: is collapsed and that's all I can find. Okay, I
Speaker 2: eat it any way, shape or form. Sometimes just peanut
Speaker 2: butter on a spoon. Sometimes peanut butter on a spoon
Speaker 2: with a little divot made with my tongue filled with
Speaker 2: local honey. If you want to get tubby really fast,
Speaker 2: let me introduce you to the wonder that is a
Speaker 2: spoonful of peanut butter scooped in some cool whip. Okay,
Speaker 2: but really, any kind of peanut butter anytime, I will
Speaker 2: eat it. And I've noticed that once I reached my forties,
Speaker 2: peanut butter sticks around me a lot more than it
Speaker 2: used to, so I'm having a real struggle with it.
Speaker 2: Thank you for listening.
Speaker 1: And do you want to buzzmarkt your favorite brand?
Speaker 2: We used this Jeff Natural that's like it's like in
Speaker 2: a brown container, and I like it so much. I've
Speaker 2: never I purposely never looked at the label because I
Speaker 2: don't want to know how natural it is. But my
Speaker 2: all time favorite is Reese's peanut butter, like the like
Speaker 2: Have you had it.
Speaker 1: You mean in the jar?
Speaker 2: Yes?
Speaker 1: Yes, Oh it's so good. I think I've had it once.
Speaker 2: But I was raised on Jeff Now go well, I.
Speaker 1: Was raised on whatever the gigantic gallon tub is that
Speaker 1: you used to it and Ladies Yeah, I don't remember.
Speaker 1: I don't think it was any of those names. Now,
Speaker 1: I mean, I love peanut butter. It's one of my
Speaker 1: favorite things in the world. And I will go crunchy
Speaker 1: or smooth no matter. I love them both. I also
Speaker 1: like it with honey. Yeah, I like it. And I
Speaker 1: don't do this much obviously because it's just I'm not
Speaker 1: nineteen years old, but a peanut butter and mayonnaise sandwich
Speaker 1: is one of the best things in the world.
Speaker 2: You know, I've never had that? Is it good? Really? Dude?
Speaker 1: Do you have any cuby Yes? Do peanut butter and
Speaker 1: cupe sammy.
Speaker 2: Okay, so half in half or more peanut butter than
Speaker 2: mayo or what.
Speaker 1: It's kind of your your jam. I definitely don't go
Speaker 1: light on the mayo because you've got to have that tang. Okay,
Speaker 1: peanut butter and marshmallow fluff I used to eat when
Speaker 1: I was a kid. Yeah, that's good stuff fluff or nutter,
Speaker 1: And now I don't eat the sugary hydrogenated types. I
Speaker 1: either have one of the sort of artisan natural kinds
Speaker 1: you have to mix up or just that. The cap
Speaker 1: Farmers Market grinds the peanuts right in front of your
Speaker 1: face into a tub and hands it to.
Speaker 2: You, right in front of your face, and it says
Speaker 2: beat it. You can't have any of this.
Speaker 1: So that's just peanuts obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and maybe a little bit of salt. Do they
Speaker 2: add any salt or is it really just peanuts?
Speaker 1: It's just peanuts.
Speaker 2: Wow. I wonder if they salt the peanuts when they
Speaker 2: roast them thing, because I've always seen like peanuts with
Speaker 2: just a little bit of salt, Like you can't have
Speaker 2: peanut butter any other way. But maybe maybe they figured
Speaker 2: out they'd cracked the code.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, they may be salted and roasted. I
Speaker 1: have no idea about the peanut, but it's good. It's
Speaker 1: all good, but I have to mix, you know, I
Speaker 1: got to put a little bit of honey in there,
Speaker 1: or maybe a little bit of a gave to give
Speaker 1: it a little bit of a sweet.
Speaker 2: Oh that's a good idea. Yeah, I was going to
Speaker 2: ask you. I've not had any artists and stuff, and
Speaker 2: I did a little research and found a couple I
Speaker 2: want to try, and I didn't know, like, is it
Speaker 2: just straight up adult kind of stuff where you're like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's really good, but you're wishing that you had like
Speaker 2: the Nasty Big three brand instead.
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, if you don't add any sweetener, and
Speaker 1: it's not nearly as good as you know, but I
Speaker 1: think the naturals are all kind of the same as
Speaker 1: far as sweetness level.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the best I could discern is that if you're
Speaker 2: paying for artisan craft peanut butter and buddy you're paying,
Speaker 2: you're like supposedly they have, you know, depending on the
Speaker 2: kind of peanuts that are chosen, the variety of peanuts,
Speaker 2: the way that it's roasted, almost like a coffee or
Speaker 2: a wine or something like that. There's like a sophisticated
Speaker 2: palette or tear wir that you really have to pay
Speaker 2: attention to. That to me is kind of like the
Speaker 2: opposite of what peanut butter is supposed to be. It's
Speaker 2: supposed to just be like this dumb, messy thing where
Speaker 2: you know your hair is totally normal, and you start
Speaker 2: eating the peanut butter and you suddenly have like a
Speaker 2: cow lick and you're wearing a striped shirt that shows
Speaker 2: your gut kind of thing. You know, like you just
Speaker 2: regress an age. But I also get wanting to enjoy
Speaker 2: peanut butter in a healthy way because it is surprisingly
Speaker 2: from what I saw, it is healthier than you would
Speaker 2: suspect if done right.
Speaker 1: Yes, not a big glob of peter pan with cup
Speaker 1: mayonnaise and potato chips smashed in between white bread. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm hungry.
Speaker 2: Now I am too. I already had some peanut butter
Speaker 2: this morning, so I'm good to go. But this thing,
Speaker 2: this is like the Yawning episode where I kept yawning
Speaker 2: doing research. This is I just wanted peanut butter the
Speaker 2: whole time.
Speaker 1: Well, peanut butter for me that has now become my
Speaker 1: in my since January. You know, I'm trying to lose
Speaker 1: some weight, so that's become my sweet treat at the
Speaker 1: end of the night instead of going and getting ice cream.
Speaker 2: Oh good for you.
Speaker 1: Just like a spoonful of peanut butter and honey and
Speaker 1: that'll satiate that desire.
Speaker 2: I haven't seen you in a while. How's it going.
Speaker 2: That's good.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm down twenty since January? But what really
Speaker 1: leveled off the past month?
Speaker 2: Congratulations, dude, that is really impressive.
Speaker 1: Just forty more to go, man, No, that's really great.
Speaker 2: Man, Just just yeah, yeah, it does plateau, but it
Speaker 2: picks up again.
Speaker 1: Don't want plat plateaus because of quarantine alcoholism.
Speaker 2: Oh well, I was going to ask, because I'm finding
Speaker 2: that that quarantining has made things like we you know,
Speaker 2: we have food and everything, but we're we're eating it
Speaker 2: less for some reason, rather than the opposite, which both you,
Speaker 2: me and I were really concerned was going to be
Speaker 2: the way it went. Are you finding it easier to
Speaker 2: keep up with food or harder?
Speaker 1: Easier because I'm cooking a lot cheese and buzz marketing again.
Speaker 1: But you know, I'm just having one of those MIC's
Speaker 1: mighty goods for lunch, which is very low on calories.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really good too.
Speaker 1: And you know, I'm just tracking the calories, and it's
Speaker 1: it's alcohol that's the problem right now.
Speaker 2: I gotcha. Yeah, I've been doing one or two nights
Speaker 2: a week tops, and then a couple of night. I've
Speaker 2: been pretty good now that I think about it. It's good. Yeah,
Speaker 2: because this has been fairly stressful, but I haven't been
Speaker 2: stressed eating too much. So okay, anyway, peanut butter here
Speaker 2: to me chuck early on we happen upon the fact
Speaker 2: of the podcast. If you ask me, this is a
Speaker 2: boy very jarring, if you'll forgive the pun. That peanut
Speaker 2: butter outside of the United States, in a lot of
Speaker 2: different countries is looked upon as very weird and gross
Speaker 2: in much the same way that we Americans tend to
Speaker 2: think of like vegemite. People like the British, the Chinese,
Speaker 2: other countries do not think peanut butter is particularly good.
Speaker 2: They think it's a little nasty. And that just blew
Speaker 2: me away to read that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd want to talk to some people before I'd
Speaker 1: let some internet website tell me that people think peanut
Speaker 1: butter is gross.
Speaker 2: Some website push your brain around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd like to talk to some folks about that.
Speaker 2: But at the very least, even if they don't think
Speaker 2: it's gross, it is an all American thing. Like even
Speaker 2: countries that do enjoy it. I've read that Australia actually
Speaker 2: likes it a lot. It's an American concoction so much
Speaker 2: so that like it might be the most American concoction
Speaker 2: there is, to tell you the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you make a good point here. You
Speaker 1: put this stuff together that mac and cheese came from Europe,
Speaker 1: hot dogs came from Europe. Yep, sort of Hamburgers, even
Speaker 1: though I would argue that the hamburgers, we know it
Speaker 1: is pretty American, sure, but peanut butter just us as
Speaker 1: far as modern times go.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that that Inca in the fifteenth century
Speaker 2: used to grind peanuts into a paste and then that
Speaker 2: was it until the nineteenth century when one of our
Speaker 2: buddies who's going to make a cameo later got his
Speaker 2: hands on the idea. But yeah, it was an American invention,
Speaker 2: except it was actually Canadian, as we'll see. But for
Speaker 2: the most part, people think of it as all American,
Speaker 2: And to talk about peanut butter, Chuck. We kind of
Speaker 2: have to talk about peanuts. There's really no way around it.
Speaker 2: Believe me. I don't want to, but we have to.
Speaker 1: I think you mean Goober's.
Speaker 2: Have you ever heard somebody outside of TV call them that?
Speaker 1: Not really, but I knew it was a thing, but
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not in the just daily nomenclature of
Speaker 1: my crowd.
Speaker 2: But it is. It's supposedly like a Southern and I
Speaker 2: guess an antiquated Southern word for peanut, a goober or
Speaker 2: goober pe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've heard goober and that old song about the
Speaker 1: raisinets guber. Well, Goober's is also a candy, right, yeah.
Speaker 2: And there's smuckers goobers, which is peanut, butter and jelly
Speaker 2: mixed together in a jar. It's actually good, is it. Yeah?
Speaker 2: Even as a kid, I was like, this is gonna
Speaker 2: be gross, and then I tried it. I was like,
Speaker 2: not bad, not bad smuckers.
Speaker 1: See, I'm pretty discerning with my gems and jellies. So
Speaker 1: that's for another day. Though you would not like this,
Speaker 1: I probably would.
Speaker 2: You would not like smuckers, and if you're at all discerning,
Speaker 2: you would not like it.
Speaker 1: All right, So peanuts is a it's a lagome and
Speaker 1: it's also called a ground nut or an earth nut,
Speaker 1: and just like a lintel or a pee, it is
Speaker 1: a little lagoome nut. No, I'm a big fan of peanuts, though,
Speaker 1: I like to eat them pretty much anyway. You can
Speaker 1: slice it from boiled to straight up raw out of
Speaker 1: the shell, like them honey, roasted, salted, and roasted, and
Speaker 1: certainly in peanut butter.
Speaker 2: So Momo and I go and visit squirrels whenever we
Speaker 2: can when we go on walks, and we always take peanuts,
Speaker 2: and I read you're supposed to take roasted unsalted peanuts,
Speaker 2: so we get like big bags of those, and if
Speaker 2: there's no squirrels out, I get to eat all peanuts.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, mo will give me a look like
Speaker 2: those are not for you, but they usually end up
Speaker 2: in my tummy. Anyway.
Speaker 1: You ever seen a squirrel stick one of those in
Speaker 1: his mouth sideways?
Speaker 2: Yep? I had darn cute. Yeah, we will like all
Speaker 2: shell them and then throw like the actual peanut and
Speaker 2: the squirrel. Somehow we'll know that there's supposed to be
Speaker 2: another one coming, because they'll very frequently put one in
Speaker 2: his cheek and then like be like, okay, toss me
Speaker 2: the other one. Then I'll take that run off and
Speaker 2: like eat it with his two little hands.
Speaker 1: It's really adorable, right, or they might stick around to
Speaker 1: see if it's one of the rare three bangers.
Speaker 2: Right, which is just that's a good squirrel day right there.
Speaker 1: All right, So these things are lagomes, and we think
Speaker 1: they originated in South America. You mentioned Peru, even though
Speaker 1: we cannot prove that through the fossil record, but they
Speaker 1: have found evidence in the archaeological culture from Peru from
Speaker 1: about seventy six hundred years ago, and it was sort
Speaker 1: of one of these things where they found the fact
Speaker 1: that they were farming this stuff, and then when you
Speaker 1: see it in like artwork and pottery and stuff like that,
Speaker 1: then you know it's sort of a thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, right, the peanut has arrived. When it shows up
Speaker 2: on pottery, you know for real. They've also found them,
Speaker 2: i guess, entombed with mummies from the Inca and the Aztecs,
Speaker 2: which makes sense because when the conquistadors arrived the Spanish
Speaker 2: and the Portuguese to South America and Central America, they
Speaker 2: found peanuts being grown as far north as Mexico, but
Speaker 2: I think the first place they encountered them was actually
Speaker 2: in the Caribbean, and they took them back with them.
Speaker 2: They took them to Spain, and Spain passed them along
Speaker 2: to the rest of Europe and the Philippines and China.
Speaker 2: The Portuguese took it back again to Europe, but also
Speaker 2: to India and Africa, and peanuts started to be farmed
Speaker 2: all over the world. Like the world loves peanuts, it's
Speaker 2: just not necessarily peanut butter that they're crazy about. And then,
Speaker 2: in a really kind of weird, surprising twist, the peanuts
Speaker 2: were re exported back to the Americas from Africa as
Speaker 2: part of the West African slave trade. And actually that
Speaker 2: word gouber, that Southern word gouber, they think comes from
Speaker 2: a Conga Leese word or Congo with a K word
Speaker 2: in gouba. Yeah, pretty surprising.
Speaker 1: Sure, goober and gouba close enough.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But to think like the peanut, you think of
Speaker 2: the peanut as just American as it comes, and then
Speaker 2: even as Georgia as it comes. But the idea that
Speaker 2: it wouldn't have been here had it not been for
Speaker 2: the importation of African slaves, that reintroduced the peanut to
Speaker 2: the Americas. That's a pretty circuitous and weird route for
Speaker 2: it to take.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and Africa still grows about twenty five percent of
Speaker 1: the peanuts in the world. Weird just below that at
Speaker 1: about twenty one percent here in the States. And it
Speaker 1: took all the way to eighteen forty two that we
Speaker 1: started growing them commercially in the US in Virginia's where
Speaker 1: it first started for oil and food and to substitute
Speaker 1: out for cocoa. And it wasn't it just wasn't like
Speaker 1: a It was kind of like for people that didn't
Speaker 1: have the means to buy something better or maybe feed
Speaker 1: it to your animals or something like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was good for livestock and the poverty stricken
Speaker 2: basically was who were expected to eat peanuts at the time.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: It just like Lobster. Have you ever read Considered the Lobster? That? Wow, man,
Speaker 2: I want to say David Lee Roth so bad, but
Speaker 2: I know that's not his name at all. Who wrote
Speaker 2: Consider the Lobster?
Speaker 1: I've never heard of that, But I who was the lobster?
Speaker 2: Who was end of tour about that movie? Oh? David
Speaker 2: Foster Wallace, Oh, sure, sure, yeah. He wrote this really
Speaker 2: great magazine article once called Considered the Consider the lobster
Speaker 2: it's good. But in it he explains that it used
Speaker 2: to be considered a food fit only for the poor. Basically,
Speaker 2: I guess peanuts were considered the same.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh you know there were.
Speaker 2: Sea spiders, yeah, or the cockroaches of the sea.
Speaker 1: Disgusting.
Speaker 2: It is kind of gross when you think of it
Speaker 2: like that. And apparently there was a law that said
Speaker 2: that you could only feed so much lobster to patients
Speaker 2: and mental asylums at the time, or else it became abusive.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, yeah, they didn't know what did they try
Speaker 1: him on a hot dog bun with mayonnaise.
Speaker 2: So one of the reasons why the peanut was viewed
Speaker 2: as such a lowly crop was that it was again
Speaker 2: it was used for oil, which I mean, this wasn't
Speaker 2: necessarily just cooking oil. They would use it to lubricate machinery,
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff. So the idea of eating the
Speaker 2: same thing that your machinery lube came from was probably
Speaker 2: not super appetizing, but it was also like you would
Speaker 2: get just basically trash when you got a bag of peanuts.
Speaker 2: Because there was no easy way to harvest it, stem them,
Speaker 2: clean them, and prepare them for basically general consumption. So again,
Speaker 2: you could just dump it into a trough and feed
Speaker 2: it to your livestock, where you could spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time trying to separate it, or you could just
Speaker 2: be like, I'm not messing with this. And for a
Speaker 2: long time they didn't mess with it. Actually.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when the Civil War happened, the Union soldiers got
Speaker 1: their hands on some of our southern peanuts and they
Speaker 1: said these are delicious, and both armies ate a lot
Speaker 1: of peanuts. And then when the circus rolled around with P. T. Barnum,
Speaker 1: Hugh Jackman, they started selling peanuts there, hot roasted peanuts,
Speaker 1: and especially in the cheap seats, they become known as
Speaker 1: the peanut gallery. And that's where that phrase came from,
Speaker 1: which is kind of interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because apparently if they didn't like what they saw,
Speaker 2: they would toss their peanuts that they were eating at
Speaker 2: the stage. So that's where peanut gallery came from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you've got them on the street corners,
Speaker 1: you've got them at baseball games. Peanuts are starting to
Speaker 1: get a little traction as a snack. But they were
Speaker 1: still not It was still hard to get like really
Speaker 1: good quality peanuts because, like you said, the way they
Speaker 1: were being harvested at the time by hand, it was
Speaker 1: just tough to do.
Speaker 2: And then so two African Americans around the turn of
Speaker 2: the last century stepped up and basically said, we're going
Speaker 2: to make the peanut what it is today. So one
Speaker 2: obviously was George Washington Carver, who's known as basically the
Speaker 2: father of the peanut, who actually, contrary to popular belief,
Speaker 2: did not invent peanut butter, but he did come up
Speaker 2: with more than three hundred different ways to use the peanut.
Speaker 2: And I never realized like why he was so bonkers
Speaker 2: for peanuts, But one of the reasons he was trying
Speaker 2: to make the peanut establish it as a prominent crop
Speaker 2: was because the South had depleted its soil so badly
Speaker 2: from growing cotton for so long, and then at the
Speaker 2: worst of this there was a bull weavil outbreak that
Speaker 2: just ruined the rest of the cotton crop. So the
Speaker 2: South really needed something to replace cotton, and George Washington
Speaker 2: Carver helped introduce and popularize peanuts and say, not only
Speaker 2: can you eat these things, look at all this other
Speaker 2: stuff you can make out.
Speaker 1: Of them, that's right. And there was another guy around
Speaker 1: the same time named Ben Hicks, Mister Benjamin Hicks. He
Speaker 1: was from Virginia and which we already talked about being
Speaker 1: a big peanut state, and he invented a gas powered
Speaker 1: machine for cleaning and stemming these things. He got it
Speaker 1: patented like a lot of well it still goes on,
Speaker 1: I guess, with the little guy and their patents. Big
Speaker 1: farm came around and a farm equipment company challenged him.
Speaker 1: He actually had to go to court, but won the
Speaker 1: case in nineteen oh one. And this picker was a big,
Speaker 1: big deal in modernizing peanut farming, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you could get really good peanuts a lot quicker doesn't
Speaker 1: take as many hands or man hours or person hours,
Speaker 1: and the demand for peanuts, for oil for eating them,
Speaker 1: and peanut butter and candy all just kind of went
Speaker 1: through the roof at that point.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, because you could you could get your hands
Speaker 2: on good peanuts. They were widely available and they were
Speaker 2: just delicious. Everyone saw finally how great peanuts are, but
Speaker 2: not peanut butter yet. And I proposed, Charles that we
Speaker 2: take a break and then come back, really dig into
Speaker 2: the peanut butter.
Speaker 1: Let's do it, okay, and.
Speaker 3: Ut Scott shot.
Speaker 2: Shot Okay. So, like I said, the INCA probably had
Speaker 2: us beat as far as the invention of peanut butter went.
Speaker 2: But it was actually a Canadian who they think was
Speaker 2: probably the actual inventor of modern peanut butter, a guy
Speaker 2: who I had never heard of before. His name was
Speaker 2: Marcellus Gilmore Edson Wallace. I'm kidding by the last part.
Speaker 2: It was just that was going Marcellus Gilmour Edson. You
Speaker 2: just can't say the name Marcellus and not followed up
Speaker 2: with Wallace somewhere.
Speaker 1: You know, it really has become like peanut butter and
Speaker 1: jelly very n So. He patented a paste made of
Speaker 1: peanuts in eighteen eighty four, which was described by him
Speaker 1: and his patent as at room temperature, having a consistency
Speaker 1: like that of butter, lard or ointment.
Speaker 2: Which tried this.
Speaker 1: It sounds gross, but when you think about peanut butter,
Speaker 1: that's kind of about right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: He added sugar to stabilize it a little bit, and
Speaker 1: this was kind of like the first modern peanut butter
Speaker 1: that we think of as peanut butter. It sold for
Speaker 1: about six cents a pound, which is a pretty good price.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and from what I can tell just reading about it,
Speaker 2: if you tried it today, you'd be like, yeah, it's
Speaker 2: peanut butter, whereas if you tried some of the other stuff,
Speaker 2: you'd be like, oh, yeah, that's the artisan peanut butter.
Speaker 2: It's punished. Yeah, and the other stuff was first developed.
Speaker 2: So it's interesting to me that there's in the first
Speaker 2: try right out of the gate, the guy who invents
Speaker 2: peanut butter basically invents the modern version of it, and
Speaker 2: then it takes a big step backwards or sideways, I
Speaker 2: guess you can say, depending on your viewpoint. When our
Speaker 2: buddy doctor John Harvey Kellogg comes along, and if you'll
Speaker 2: remember from the live show we did on the Kellogg Brothers,
Speaker 2: he invented nut butters, and in particular of peanut butter.
Speaker 2: He's considered one of the main inventors of peanut butter.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, it was right up his alley. Because I
Speaker 1: think that might be my favorite live show we've done. Actually,
Speaker 1: oh yeah, I think so PR was my favorite PR.
Speaker 1: I knew you were going to say that you did. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that was a good one you did. I think those
Speaker 1: are my top two.
Speaker 2: What about pentos Man, what about Nybe Cooper?
Speaker 1: Those might be the first four that I would name.
Speaker 1: What else have we done?
Speaker 2: Mals Bars, We did the secret one that is still
Speaker 2: supposedly on tour but on hiatus right now. So I
Speaker 2: think that's it. I think that's all. Well, I'm going to.
Speaker 1: Go with John Harvey Kellogg because he as if you
Speaker 1: listen to that one, he was very big on chewing
Speaker 1: food until it was the consistency of peanut butter basically,
Speaker 1: and so peanut butter comes along and he's like, well,
Speaker 1: this is perfect because you don't have to chew it
Speaker 1: like that, it's already like that'll just glide right through
Speaker 1: your system and come out as delicious peanut butter poop.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it won't poison your entire body and you
Speaker 2: want have to spend any time in the electric light bath,
Speaker 2: right or the kneading machine. So doctor Kellogg creates basically
Speaker 2: what we would recognize today as the the artisan version
Speaker 2: of peanut butter. It's just ground up peanuts that form
Speaker 2: a paste and apparently that's just a natural thing that happens,
Speaker 2: like if you put roasted peanuts in a food processor
Speaker 2: it's going to turn like gritty in everything, but if
Speaker 2: you just keep going, it eventually reaches this point, this
Speaker 2: threshold where that grit turns into this oily paste like
Speaker 2: peanut butter, like an ointment, like Marcellus Wallace would call it.
Speaker 2: And that's basically what John Harvey Kellogg did and served
Speaker 2: at Battle Creek. But most of the people who would
Speaker 2: have been exposed to peanut butter would not have tried
Speaker 2: John Kelly because you know that sanitarium was really expensive,
Speaker 2: and it was for the wealthy, it was for celebrities.
Speaker 2: So most people experience peanut butter at one of two places.
Speaker 2: And Chuck, I really found out in researching this that
Speaker 2: the history of peanut butter is super murky. It's like
Speaker 2: a spoonful of peanut butter stood up in a glass
Speaker 2: of water, kind of murky, right where it is kind
Speaker 2: of cross where it's just not entirely clear who did
Speaker 2: what when, whose contribution has been disproportionately mythologized. But from
Speaker 2: what I can tell, John Harvey Kellogg is definitely one
Speaker 2: of the fathers of peanut butter. Mister Marcellis was one
Speaker 2: as well. And then it gets a little murkier after that,
Speaker 2: so much so that people say, well, peanut butter made
Speaker 2: his debut at the nineteen oh four Saint Louis World's Fair,
Speaker 2: and then other people are like, no, no, that's why wrong.
Speaker 2: It made its debut at the eighteen ninety three Chicago
Speaker 2: World's Fair, and I can find good credible sources that
Speaker 2: say either one. So I have no idea where it
Speaker 2: made its debut. I believe it was sold for sure
Speaker 2: at the Saint Louis Worldfair in nineteen oh four, and
Speaker 2: that a guy named h Summers sold like twenty thousand
Speaker 2: dollars worth of peanut butter as snack items there, but
Speaker 2: that the people who ate it there had probably already
Speaker 2: been exposed to peanut butter and liked it. It might
Speaker 2: not have been something that was part of like their
Speaker 2: everyday thing. They weren't standing in their pantry eating it
Speaker 2: off of a spoon, but they had probably had it before,
Speaker 2: and this was like a real treat for them to
Speaker 2: experience it. It wasn't like debuted in nineteen oh four, from
Speaker 2: what I can.
Speaker 1: Tell right well, regardless of who introduced it initially, By
Speaker 1: nineteen oh seven, thanks to companies like Hines and beechnut.
Speaker 1: They were selling thirty four million pounds of peanut butter
Speaker 1: up for just two million in eighteen ninety nine, So
Speaker 1: over an eight year period, that's a pretty big increase.
Speaker 1: And the soldiers come into play again. It wasn't just
Speaker 1: the Civil War and World Wars one and two. And
Speaker 1: I've had peanut butter k rations before really, uh huh.
Speaker 1: My dad used to get that stuff a lot when
Speaker 1: I was a kid for camping and stuff at the
Speaker 1: Army Navy store. So it became a big part of
Speaker 1: your army rations and the armed forces because I had
Speaker 1: a lot of protein. It was a good sustenance. You
Speaker 1: could make a PB and J and that was pretty
Speaker 1: comforting if you were on the front lines or in
Speaker 1: a trench in World War One.
Speaker 2: Yeah, supposedly they popularized the PB and J. The troops did.
Speaker 1: That's right, and thank them for that.
Speaker 2: Oh I will, I'll salute the troops for that one.
Speaker 1: But it was pretty regional at the time in the
Speaker 1: early twentieth century. It didn't travel that great. They finally,
Speaker 1: let you know, I mentioned hydrogenized earlier. It was this hydrogenation,
Speaker 1: is that right? That really led to the Big Three
Speaker 1: coming about with the industrialization of peanut butter production, and
Speaker 1: three gentlemen named Peter, Pan, Skippy and Jeff, which I
Speaker 1: was curious about Jeff where that came from? And all
Speaker 1: I found was they said, it's easy to spell, easy
Speaker 1: to say, and easy to remember.
Speaker 2: It's true all three of those checks.
Speaker 1: And had no meaning beyond that. Basically.
Speaker 2: Really, I would have guessed I had something to do with,
Speaker 2: you know, like doing it in a jiff or jiffy
Speaker 2: or something. Huh.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, I mean you got to be
Speaker 1: in the room, I guess to know where the seed
Speaker 1: came from. But they just said it was simple and
Speaker 1: super easy, and that was kind of the end of
Speaker 1: that story.
Speaker 2: So good night. So whatt it more? No, I'm with you.
Speaker 2: I do too. I'm kind of mad right now. But
Speaker 2: we gotta press on with hydrogenation, right because there's this
Speaker 2: guy named John Krampner, and he wrote a book called
Speaker 2: The Creamy and Crunchy all about peanut butter, and he
Speaker 2: basically points to that as saying, like that, that's that
Speaker 2: was the turning point for peanut butter, maybe even tied
Speaker 2: for first with its invention, was the introduction of hydrogenation,
Speaker 2: which takes oils that are liquid at room temperature and
Speaker 2: as hydrogen and a catalyst usually like powdered nickel, and
Speaker 2: those bonds become infused or saturated with hydrogen and so
Speaker 2: they stick together a lot more easily. So those liquid
Speaker 2: oils have a more stable solid state at room temperature.
Speaker 2: So you go from like peanut butter with oil on top,
Speaker 2: to peanut butter that doesn't have oil on top, but
Speaker 2: the oils mixed into the mixture and it stays that
Speaker 2: way even on the store shelf, which people love because
Speaker 2: I mean, you know from eating artis in peanut butter.
Speaker 2: It's kind of a pain to stir it up.
Speaker 1: I mean in little stir is a little dodgy because
Speaker 1: it's so close to the lid. Yeah, but you just
Speaker 1: have to have the right spoon, take your time and
Speaker 1: don't be in a rush. And you know, shelf life
Speaker 1: stability is super important with peanut butter because only monsters
Speaker 1: put their peanut butter in the refrigerator?
Speaker 2: Who does that? Who point them out to me? Monsters?
Speaker 2: Like you've met somebody who's done that before?
Speaker 1: No? I think that was in a Judge John Hodgmen
Speaker 1: listener mail. At one point, Oh, man, I don't think
Speaker 1: it was a major case, but I think it was
Speaker 1: one of the one of their listener mail ones. Okay,
Speaker 1: but totally totally think it should be on the shelf.
Speaker 1: That's where it belongs. Although I will say if you
Speaker 1: mix a little peeb and J with a natural kind
Speaker 1: and you put it in the fridge because you've had
Speaker 1: your two bites and you made too much the next day,
Speaker 1: it is interesting. It's more like a Reese's cup consistency.
Speaker 1: It's kind of hard. It makes for a nice little snack,
Speaker 1: but it's certainly not anything that you can spread on bread.
Speaker 2: Right right, Well, that's the other thing too, is if
Speaker 2: the oils are mixed into the solids, that forms this
Speaker 2: creamier substance that makes it way easier to spread, which
Speaker 2: moms love. Right. And then the other thing it does
Speaker 2: too is with all of those hydrogen atoms linked on
Speaker 2: to the fat chains the lipids, there's not all these
Speaker 2: unused or open bonds that an oxygen atom can come
Speaker 2: along and bond to and oxidize the peanut butter, which
Speaker 2: creates peroxide, which gives it a rancid taste. So hydrogenation
Speaker 2: not only made peanut butter less liquidy, more creamy. It
Speaker 2: also made it last longer, like is sitting on the
Speaker 2: shelf before it was sold and used. It wouldn't turn
Speaker 2: rancid nearly as fast, so it was a big deal.
Speaker 2: The problem is is that took peanut butter, which is
Speaker 2: actually kind of healthy with a mono unsaturated fat that
Speaker 2: liquid oil and turned it into saturated or partially saturated fat,
Speaker 2: which is really tough on the old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's why I stay away from that stuff. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's so good, but yeah, I just I made the
Speaker 1: switch many years ago.
Speaker 2: Good for you, Jack.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The hydrogenated outsold natural for the first time in
Speaker 1: forty two and accounts for about eighty percent of the
Speaker 1: current market. Peter Pan, believe it or not, I don't
Speaker 1: think I've ever had Peter Pan. It's not bad unless
Speaker 1: it was just at a friend's house or something. I
Speaker 1: don't think we ever had it in our house.
Speaker 2: Peter Pan makes a natural one too, and I mean
Speaker 2: I'm making air quotes like Jeff does, and it's.
Speaker 1: I think they all do know.
Speaker 2: It might even be.
Speaker 1: Better than Jeff's natural version. I think Emily likes the
Speaker 1: Smucker's natural huh. But I also got some I can't
Speaker 1: remember the brand. It's one of the one of the
Speaker 1: other natural brands. They're all pretty good, I think. Okay,
Speaker 1: So nineteen twenty eight was when peter Pan rolled out
Speaker 1: and was the first which I didn't know was the
Speaker 1: first major brand. It was the biggest seller at the time.
Speaker 1: It used that partial hydrogenation process that was patented by
Speaker 1: a guy named Joseph Rosefield from Kentucky. And then that's
Speaker 1: where Jeff Skippy came from. Peter Pan's parent company said
Speaker 1: I want to cut your licensing fee. He said, I'm
Speaker 1: done with you, and I'm going to go out and
Speaker 1: I'm going to make Skippy on my own. And by
Speaker 1: the end of his career he had ten patents, not
Speaker 1: just for peanut butter but relating to food. And he
Speaker 1: was just kind of like Chevy Chase and Vacation movies.
Speaker 1: He was a food scientist.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what was it the thing that he learned to
Speaker 2: code a flake with that he used on the sled.
Speaker 1: Oh, I don't know, some sort of a non nutritional
Speaker 1: I can't remember.
Speaker 2: I'll figure it out. No need to email everyone, No
Speaker 2: need to.
Speaker 1: Email, No, I want to hear. I want every email
Speaker 1: about this.
Speaker 2: I think it was called a non nutritional coding is
Speaker 2: what he called it. But yes, he was very much
Speaker 2: like that. But he was also way, way, way better
Speaker 2: than anything the Chase could ever be because he was
Speaker 2: a really great boss. He paid his workers really well,
Speaker 2: and in creating the Skippy brand, he broke off from
Speaker 2: this kind of this corporate overlord that he worked for
Speaker 2: was keeping him under his thumb and then trying to
Speaker 2: short change him. And said, you know what, by creating Skippy,
Speaker 2: I'm going to not only challenge you, Peter Pan, I'm
Speaker 2: going to become the best selling peanut butter there is
Speaker 2: from like nineteen fifty to nineteen eighty, like Skippy was it.
Speaker 2: And I just missed the Skippy train. So I'm wondering,
Speaker 2: like if I had been born in nineteen seventy, if
Speaker 2: I would have been raised on Skippy. But I came
Speaker 2: along at the jiff Era really.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he said, in your face, and they said, I
Speaker 1: love peanut butter in my face, and he went, oh,
Speaker 1: I got to think of a new comeback.
Speaker 2: You know, Chuck. One thing that's always bothered me about
Speaker 2: Peter Pan is do you remember that jingle where it's
Speaker 2: like eat some peanut butter anytime you can. It's like, oh,
Speaker 2: that's nice, and then they follow it up with but
Speaker 2: only if it's Peter Pan, Like it's got kind of
Speaker 2: this like if I can't have you, no one can
Speaker 2: psychotic mentality to it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I never heard that song, so I never really thought
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 2: You didn't watch the television in the nineteen nineties, I did.
Speaker 1: I don't remember that one though, But I mean I
Speaker 1: was in the nineties. I was in college, so I
Speaker 1: probably wasn't. I don't even think we had cable. I
Speaker 1: didn't watch much TV in college, gotcha. So Skippy is
Speaker 1: doing great. Peter Pan is just like, well, I guess
Speaker 1: I'll just have to be second banana and Skippy and
Speaker 1: Jeff said, how do you like being third banana?
Speaker 2: Because that's where you're headed.
Speaker 1: That same year, in nineteen fifty five, this is when
Speaker 1: Rosefield sold Skippy to Best Foods. Procter and Gamble bought
Speaker 1: Big Top Peanut from William T. Young, also of Kentucky,
Speaker 1: and then they became JIFF and they held that brand
Speaker 1: until two thou one, two thousand and two.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I did not know that, that's right, But wait,
Speaker 2: two thousand and one, two thousand and two.
Speaker 1: It's when they sold the Smuckers.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, but Jeff is still the number one brand.
Speaker 1: Today, right as far as I know.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's that's my understanding too. I thought you
Speaker 2: were saying like it was the number one brand until then.
Speaker 2: But yeah, from from I think nineteen eighty to today,
Speaker 2: it's it's number one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and they got a lot of I think they
Speaker 1: all do. But Jeff alone has fifteen different kinds of
Speaker 1: peanut butter, which is kind of nuts. If you look
Speaker 1: at their lists, They've got all kinds of different crazy
Speaker 1: peanut butters out there.
Speaker 2: Now, well, nuts is just one variety. Well, they all
Speaker 2: have peanuts in them. Yeah, well they have. They have
Speaker 2: a good almond butter too. Yeah, I can.
Speaker 1: I can get down with some almond butter.
Speaker 2: You know what, buddy, I'm going to buy you some.
Speaker 2: When we see each other again, I'm going to be
Speaker 2: brandishing a jar of Jeff almond butter for you.
Speaker 1: You know, it's not good.
Speaker 2: What is uh?
Speaker 1: You know you can't take peanut butter sandwiches into classrooms
Speaker 1: anymore mm hmm, or at least at you know, at
Speaker 1: my kids preschool. And of course you can't take anything
Speaker 1: in there anymore because it's closed. But you have to
Speaker 1: make you have to make it with what a cheese
Speaker 1: I used to chew these things all the time. What
Speaker 1: a baseball players chew? Sunflower seeds, chickpeas, sunflower butter.
Speaker 2: That's good too. I've had that. It's not bad.
Speaker 1: Oh, I do not care for it, So.
Speaker 2: You don't like it? Huh? I think it's all right,
Speaker 2: I guess wow. I really like basically any kind of butters,
Speaker 2: including just butter. Butter.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, butter's great. But I just cannot get down
Speaker 1: with the sunflower flower.
Speaker 2: Yeah, some flower, No, it totally, and it's definitely there's
Speaker 2: a taste of sunflower to it. Like you could have
Speaker 2: no idea what you were eating and somebody gives it
Speaker 2: to you and you would be like, that's sunflower butter,
Speaker 2: isn't it.
Speaker 1: I love sunflower seeds though. That was a big thing
Speaker 1: in college for a little while. We would sit around
Speaker 1: and you know, just put a mouthful of flower seeds
Speaker 1: on our mouth. O.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I remember the sunflower trend quite well.
Speaker 1: Remember that. And you would crack, Yeah, you would crack
Speaker 1: them open with your teeth and you would spit out
Speaker 1: the shell and then swallow the seed that you on
Speaker 1: the seed and swallow it.
Speaker 2: So I would eat the whole thing.
Speaker 1: You know, you didn't eat the shell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is I would eat the whole thing. And
Speaker 2: that I would smoke a whole cigar and in hal it.
Speaker 1: You're a very bad squirrel. And then you would drown,
Speaker 1: drown your lawn and water. Yeah, and you would sit
Speaker 1: back and say, I'm doing life just right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got it all figured out. Would you really
Speaker 2: eat the shells? Huh? I still do to this day, really, yeah.
Speaker 2: And it's kind of dangerous because every once in a
Speaker 2: while there's like one one part to it that's just
Speaker 2: a spear and you can go right into your gums
Speaker 2: if you're not careful. So I'm pretty good at it,
Speaker 2: but every once in a while and be like I
Speaker 2: think I'm bleeding.
Speaker 1: Well, here's how I eat peanuts when I go to
Speaker 1: the ball game. I stick the whole peanut in my
Speaker 1: mouth really uh huh, like a squirrel, and I kind
Speaker 1: of suck on it for a second and get that
Speaker 1: salty goodness and then I crack it open with my
Speaker 1: teeth and I pull it out of my mouth and
Speaker 1: then dump the peanuts in and throw away the shells.
Speaker 2: And then between every bite you have to coat your
Speaker 2: lips with lipbalm because it's so dried and cracked.
Speaker 1: By saltby it is pretty salty. But the only time
Speaker 1: I eat peanuts in the shell like that is at
Speaker 1: a baseball game.
Speaker 2: So now I do something similar, but it's with peanut
Speaker 2: M and MS. I will crack the peanut M and
Speaker 2: M in half and expose the peanut in your teeth, yes,
Speaker 2: and then eat that the the freed chocolate shell side,
Speaker 2: and then eat the other chocolate shelled side from around
Speaker 2: the peanut, and then I eat the peanut by itself.
Speaker 1: Are you kidding?
Speaker 2: You?
Speaker 1: Are you serious?
Speaker 2: I'm dead serious. I can't remember the last time I
Speaker 2: ate a peanut minem without doing that with every single one.
Speaker 1: All right, here's what I'll do sometimes with peanut M
Speaker 1: and MS. Okay, we should just have a side gig
Speaker 1: where we just talk about our stupid quirks. We do.
Speaker 2: It's part of the podcast I put.
Speaker 1: And sometimes I'll just mow on them like there's no tomorrow.
Speaker 1: But sometimes I will, and this helps me eat fewer
Speaker 1: of them, because I will pop one or two in
Speaker 1: my mouth, and I'll just let them sit there and
Speaker 1: marinate in my saliva. Oh yeah, yeah, and swirl them
Speaker 1: around and then that candy coating kind of melts away
Speaker 1: a little bit and makes it like a really soft
Speaker 1: little crunch.
Speaker 2: Yep. I know, I know what you mean.
Speaker 1: You know that move Yep, it's really good.
Speaker 2: I do that too, But usually I'm a little less
Speaker 2: patient than that. It's every once in a while, maybe
Speaker 2: when I'm like, you know, I have a whole tupperware
Speaker 2: bowl full of peanut M and ms, I might go
Speaker 2: crazy like that.
Speaker 1: All right, so let's should we take a break or
Speaker 1: should we wait a second?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's do that. Let's take a break.
Speaker 1: And jog jo.
Speaker 3: Shot shot.
Speaker 1: All right. So where we left off was Jeff was
Speaker 1: killing it. You and I have very weird eating habits. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and Jeff starts killing it. They start putting sugar and
Speaker 1: molasses in there. Everyone else followed suit, and finally, in
Speaker 1: the nineteen sixties, the FDA stood up and said, hold
Speaker 1: on a minute, guys, this stuff you're calling peanut butter
Speaker 1: is junk food. Now there's one leading brand. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to name names. I think it was Jeff that
Speaker 1: was only seventy five percent actual peanuts. He's like, so
Speaker 1: you got to start putting ninety five percent peanuts in
Speaker 1: the whole thing. The peanut butter lobby said, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker 1: How about eighty seven percent? And they said, we're the FDA,
Speaker 1: we meet people in the middle. Let's settle on ninety
Speaker 1: percent peanuts and peanut butter. And since nineteen seventy one
Speaker 1: that's been the standard.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like this went on for a dozen years.
Speaker 2: There's a really interesting article on today I found out
Speaker 2: called the Momentous Peanut Butter Hearings. It's definitely worth reading.
Speaker 2: But it just was nuts, how literally nuts how long
Speaker 2: this went on for. And then finally it's just kind
Speaker 2: of heartening that the FDA was like, no, ninety percent,
Speaker 2: that's as low as we're going. Make sure that your
Speaker 2: peanut butter has ninety percent peanuts. Good day to you, sir.
Speaker 2: And that was that finally, and it became enforced in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two, and still today there is a federal
Speaker 2: legal definition for what constitutes peanut butter, and one of
Speaker 2: the first things is it has to have ninety percent
Speaker 2: peanuts in it.
Speaker 1: That's right, because that is still the standard. If it
Speaker 1: is smooth, it has to be very fine with an
Speaker 1: even texture and no hint of grainy peanuts at all.
Speaker 1: If it's a medium, you can have a little grain
Speaker 1: to it, but nothing larger than one sixteenth of an
Speaker 1: inch in dimension, and then all bets are off. If
Speaker 1: you're crunchy. I don't know who says chunky, but it's
Speaker 1: definitely crunchy.
Speaker 2: Chunky. Yeah, that's like a type of Campbell soup.
Speaker 1: So crunchy can be larger than one sixteenth and I
Speaker 1: guess I mean they're all about the same size. I'd
Speaker 1: be curious to see if there are any kind of
Speaker 1: half sized peanuts if it gets that chunky.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like larger than a sixteenth of an inch, Yeah,
Speaker 2: like a half of a peanut, people would be like,
Speaker 2: it's too chunky. I can't take it.
Speaker 1: Maybe, I mean that's like candy bar level.
Speaker 2: It is. It is so chuck. What you've just said
Speaker 2: is the federal government's definition of the different varieties of
Speaker 2: peanut butter as far as they're concerned. And I don't
Speaker 2: know if you said it or not, but that guy
Speaker 2: Joseph Rosefield, who was the founder of Skippy. He actually
Speaker 2: created chunky sorry, crunchy peanut butter.
Speaker 1: We both said crunchy, and now we're both saying chunky.
Speaker 2: I know it's kind of stuck in my head, but
Speaker 2: he's the guy who if you like chunky peanut butter,
Speaker 2: first of all, shame on you. But secondly, thank Joseph
Speaker 2: Rosefield for that, because he came up with it, I
Speaker 2: think in the fifties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like I said, I like it all. There is
Speaker 1: not a kind of peanut butter that I won't eat.
Speaker 1: I think it's all really good.
Speaker 2: So then I think also this kind of demonstrates just
Speaker 2: how seriously Americans take peanut butter. The USDA goes on
Speaker 2: to say, there are other qualities that make a peanut
Speaker 2: butter either Grade A, Grade B or substandard peanut butter, and.
Speaker 1: It's my favorite.
Speaker 2: It's things like color. The color has to match certain
Speaker 2: color samples that you can only obtain from a company
Speaker 2: called Agtron Ink of Sparks, Nevada. This is in the
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy two law that you have to write to
Speaker 2: Agtron and say, can you please send me the peanut
Speaker 2: butter colored standards because I need to make sure that
Speaker 2: my peanut butter matches the USDA's standards for color of
Speaker 2: peanut butter online.
Speaker 1: Get with it while you're writing me a letter.
Speaker 2: Right, That's that's a really good point. You email, or
Speaker 2: you'd write back like, I don't know, can you please
Speaker 2: send me the website URL? And then they would. But
Speaker 2: when you get this color standard, you can't just look
Speaker 2: at it wherever you have to. You have to look
Speaker 2: at it with a at a light with a color
Speaker 2: temperature of about seventy five hundred calvin plus or minus
Speaker 2: two hundred and fifty calvin or something equal to a
Speaker 2: moderately partly cloudy day. That's that's the government's standard for
Speaker 2: judging the color of peanut butter.
Speaker 1: All I can think of now is somebody writing a
Speaker 1: handwritten letter to someone asking for a URL, someone with
Speaker 1: a ballpoint pin spelling out https colon slash slash.
Speaker 2: I looked up agtron ink. They're still around and they
Speaker 2: are on point man. They've been in business for I
Speaker 2: think about a century. But they are all about like
Speaker 2: food analysis. If you're a coffee roast or a barista
Speaker 2: or something, you can take their online class. I think
Speaker 2: it's online. It's like a day long class that like
Speaker 2: really teaches you all, like the science behind the coffee
Speaker 2: you're selling and roasting and grinding. It's a really interesting company,
Speaker 2: it looks like. But that's if you start making peanut butter,
Speaker 2: you need to you need to write a letter to
Speaker 2: agtron Nink asking for their UURL and.
Speaker 1: They will send you a laminated sheet and a Manila envelope. Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: if you're talking peanut butter. In the United States, the
Speaker 1: about half of the edible use of peanuts is from
Speaker 1: peanut butter. Obviously, peanut butter is and a ton of
Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite parts of candy bars and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. Totally, I'm a sucker for any peanut
Speaker 1: butter ice creams, peanut butter candy bars. It's just I
Speaker 1: can't get enough of that combination.
Speaker 2: I'm totally with you, buddy.
Speaker 1: Which, by the way, Joseph Rosefield was the skippy guy,
Speaker 1: was the guy who came up with that peanut butter
Speaker 1: and chocolate combo before Reesus did. But the National Peanut
Speaker 1: Board estimates that it takes about five hundred and forty
Speaker 1: peanuts to make up one of those twelve ounce jars,
Speaker 1: which is a lot of peanuts. That kind of surprised me.
Speaker 1: It was more than I thought.
Speaker 2: Yeah, sit there and shell peanuts until you reach five
Speaker 2: hundred and forty individual peanuts, and you will have a
Speaker 2: sudden appreciation for your panut butter.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean for sure. But of course
Speaker 1: machines do that.
Speaker 2: But yeah, well, if it's artisan, no, somebody wearing like
Speaker 2: a calico srong is doing it with by hand. In Vermont,
Speaker 2: I do think Vermont people are like, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: that's my conception. Prove me wrong, Vermont.
Speaker 1: So in two thousand and nine, we're talking about health aspects.
Speaker 1: There's a couple of parts to the health of it,
Speaker 1: of whether or not it's just good for you, which
Speaker 1: we'll get to. But also there have been a couple
Speaker 1: of peanut butter incidents throughout the years in recent years
Speaker 1: that have scared people off peanut butter a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine was the second one. There
Speaker 1: were five hundred people who got sick and eight people
Speaker 1: died from eating peanut butter from a plant in Blakely, Georgia.
Speaker 1: That was pretty gross and not maintained.
Speaker 2: Well. I remember that, don't you. I remember both of them.
Speaker 1: The other one was in two thousand and seven, and
Speaker 1: that was Salmonella and peter Pan and Great Value, both
Speaker 1: owned by con Agra, and that got about six hundred
Speaker 1: and change sick, but nobody died, luckily, but I remember
Speaker 1: both of those. It was a big deal because peanut
Speaker 1: butter is so ubiquitous.
Speaker 2: So there's also I didn't realize this until I started
Speaker 2: researching it. There's something called affle detoxins. Have you heard
Speaker 2: of them?
Speaker 1: I think I did back when all the stuff happened,
Speaker 1: or maybe not, I have heard of it.
Speaker 2: So there's there's a mold called Aspergillis that grows on
Speaker 2: peanuts because peanuts are grown underground, right, and the Aspergillis
Speaker 2: can produce a toxin called afflotoxins. And apparently humans are
Speaker 2: pretty much immune to its initial effects or its short
Speaker 2: term effects, but we have no idea what happens if
Speaker 2: you eat aflotoxins. You know, over the course of a lifetime,
Speaker 2: you know what happens. And apparently there's studies of humans
Speaker 2: that found that it's been linked to certain types of cancer,
Speaker 2: potentially birth effects, cognitive disabilities, all sorts of horrible stuff.
Speaker 2: And peanut butter producers say, well, we get at least
Speaker 2: eighty nine percent of the aflatoxins out just by processing peanuts,
Speaker 2: And you say, well, what about the other eleven percent,
Speaker 2: And they're like, have some beetter pan and forget your troubles.
Speaker 2: That's right. So there is like a real risk of
Speaker 2: something bad happening to you, whether it's a poisoning or not.
Speaker 2: But a lot of people are like, even if it's
Speaker 2: pure peanut butter, it's still it's still not healthy for you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, the major brands that are sugary and
Speaker 1: hydrogenated certainly aren't good for you. If you're going to
Speaker 1: the farmer's market and getting those peanuts a ground right
Speaker 1: in front of your face.
Speaker 2: It's not terrible.
Speaker 1: You know. It's got a lot of nutrition. It's got
Speaker 1: a lot of antioxidants. It's got we're talking, this is
Speaker 1: one hundred grams of this stuff. You've got forty five
Speaker 1: percent RDA of vitamin E, sixty seven percent of vitamin
Speaker 1: B three, sixteen seven percent I'm sorry, seventy three percent
Speaker 1: of manganese, and thirty nine percent of magnesium. So it's
Speaker 1: got a lot of good stuff in there. It's got
Speaker 1: a lot of calories too, that's about six hundred calories
Speaker 1: eating one hundred grams worth. But if it's you know,
Speaker 1: I mean that's one hundred grams is a lot.
Speaker 2: No, it is a tremendous amount. The other thing is too,
Speaker 2: is if you're eating that artisan peanut butter, that craft
Speaker 2: peanut butter, the non hydrogenated I guess I should say
Speaker 2: peanut butter, the oils and the fats in it are
Speaker 2: actually good for you. The monounsaturated fat is the kind
Speaker 2: that's good for your heart. It's that saturated stuff that
Speaker 2: becomes shelf stable. That's the stuff that can build up
Speaker 2: as plaque in your arterial walls and cause heart attacks
Speaker 2: and strokes and that kind of thing. But the natural
Speaker 2: peanut butter actually does the opposite. It helps your cholesterol levels.
Speaker 1: That's right, It's just great.
Speaker 2: It's basically just really calorie dents. Like if you're trying
Speaker 2: to lose weight, it's a good idea to shy away
Speaker 2: from peanut butter. But if you're eating natural peanut butter,
Speaker 2: it's not like a non nutritious food. It's actually pretty nutritious.
Speaker 2: It's just calorie dents.
Speaker 1: Right, And if you're trying to lose weight, and you
Speaker 1: opt for a spoonful of peanut butter and honey rather
Speaker 1: than a pint of bin and Jerri's, then you're definitely
Speaker 1: doing the right thing.
Speaker 2: For sure, man, for sure. One thing though, that has,
Speaker 2: you know, strikes fear in a lot of people, Like
Speaker 2: you were saying in your daughter's preschool, you can't even
Speaker 2: bring a peanut butter sandwich in there anymore. Is this
Speaker 2: the rise of the peanut allergy? Like, there's a survey
Speaker 2: that was conducted in the eighties, the nineties, and the
Speaker 2: two thousands, and I think the most recent one was
Speaker 2: in two thousand and eight, and they found that between
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven and two thousand and eight, in this
Speaker 2: national survey of fifty three hundred homes, that the self
Speaker 2: reported peanut allergies went from zero point four percent of
Speaker 2: respondents to one point four percent of respondents, which is
Speaker 2: one point four percent. Doesn't sound like a lot, but
Speaker 2: that's a huge increase between like eleven years, I guess.
Speaker 2: But the thing is is, if you look at other studies,
Speaker 2: they found that yes, self reported rates are on the rise,
Speaker 2: but doctor diagnosed rates have held steady. So there seems
Speaker 2: to be an increase in perception that people have peanut allergies.
Speaker 2: That's not necessary an increase in actual peanut allergies, which
Speaker 2: is really strange and bizarre to think of, if that's correct.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I have seen the trend of oral immunotherapy
Speaker 1: like feeding your very small child and your baby peanuts
Speaker 1: to a little bit at a time to ensure or
Speaker 1: hopefully ensure that they won't be stricken with the worst
Speaker 1: food allergy of all. It's true, the peanut allergy. And
Speaker 1: there was a study in Israel that had guidelines for
Speaker 1: early infant feeding and they said, around four to six
Speaker 1: months of age, just shove a bunch of peanuts in
Speaker 1: their mouth and see what happened, and.
Speaker 2: Make them chew, and then hit them with the lipball.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hit them with that. Hit them with the lipball.
Speaker 2: So one last thing, chuck and I couldn't find a
Speaker 2: place to put it, but it has to be said.
Speaker 2: There is a phobia called arak aboot to aphobia iraka
Speaker 2: bo aphobia. Yeah, I think I nailed it that last time, okay,
Speaker 2: And it is.
Speaker 1: Is that for me? Is that my cue? Yes, it's
Speaker 1: hard to tell because you're not kicking me under the table.
Speaker 2: I'm not like doing that series of blinks.
Speaker 1: That is the fear peanut butter are getting stuck on
Speaker 1: the roof of your mouth. That is a true thing,
Speaker 1: which is shouldn't be a fear, because all you gotta
Speaker 1: do is just keep working the tongue and that peanut
Speaker 1: butter is going to dislodge and go right down your throat.
Speaker 2: That's right, just like John Harvey Kellogg.
Speaker 1: Foresaw your little whole milk and you're all set.
Speaker 2: Nice man, or some cool whip. Don't forget the cool whip.
Speaker 1: I gotta try that.
Speaker 2: That's I don't know if you should try that. Like,
Speaker 2: I think I gained ten pounds in a month just
Speaker 2: after I discovered that it's it's not good for you, man.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I can't wait. Cool whip doesn't last long on
Speaker 1: our house. We can't keep it here. It's just like
Speaker 1: it's really hard not to just sort of, oh, I'll
Speaker 1: just have a little spoonful every now and.
Speaker 2: Then, right and then where did it go? Yeah, it's
Speaker 2: like your hair is stuck to your forehead because you've
Speaker 2: put your whole face in the tub.
Speaker 1: So good, and it's good frozen too. I don't know
Speaker 1: if you ever tried that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've tried it both ways, but if you do
Speaker 2: want to try, it's about it's about half and half
Speaker 2: peanut butter. Cool person, grainful.
Speaker 1: I'll give it a shot if I'm ever allowed to
Speaker 1: go to the grocery store again.
Speaker 2: Yeah right, Okay, Well I think that's it then for
Speaker 2: peanut butter unless you have anything else.
Speaker 1: Got nothing else?
Speaker 2: Okay, Well since we said we have nothing else, that
Speaker 2: means it's time for those who are male.
Speaker 1: I'm going to call this early listener that came back
Speaker 1: as an adult love these hey guys last year? Well,
Speaker 1: what I really love is people that never stopped listening. Right,
Speaker 1: But we'll take this, hey guys. Last year I started
Speaker 1: getting back into stuff you should know after a long
Speaker 1: break from the nine to ten days? What does that mean?
Speaker 1: And a need for an educational podcast on my long
Speaker 1: drives to Blacksburg, Virginia from the Tidewater area of Virginia.
Speaker 2: I think they got hit by the affle a toxin.
Speaker 1: I think he maybe I don't know what he. When
Speaker 1: I first started listening, I was in middle school and
Speaker 1: I always loved trivia, and your podcast helped me annoy
Speaker 1: other students with random facts about twin kis and Florid.
Speaker 1: Once I went through church camp, it was appreciated. I
Speaker 1: earned the name random fact kid. You guys helped me
Speaker 1: encourage my natural instincts in the world that got me
Speaker 1: through electrical engineering and also helped me earn free beer
Speaker 1: at trivia nights because of my tendency to remember obscure knowledge.
Speaker 1: I even made a friend through the podcast listener Lucas.
Speaker 1: I take it that's just Lucas.
Speaker 2: Listener is not his first name, I hope.
Speaker 1: So he was listening to your podcast while driving his
Speaker 1: bus and I recognize the familiar voices. So I just
Speaker 1: wanted to say thanks, guys, and that is from listener Daniel,
Speaker 1: So maybe that's how they met. They had the same
Speaker 1: first name, right.
Speaker 2: Like, I never thought I would have a brother, but
Speaker 2: now I do. Daniel and Lucas together. Listener, you got anything.
Speaker 1: Else, now I got nothing at all.
Speaker 2: Well, if you want to be like listener Daniel and
Speaker 2: let us know how long you've been listening, we want
Speaker 2: to hear from you. You can get in touch with
Speaker 2: this just through a simple email. Simple gesture, the gesture
Speaker 2: of wrapping it up, the gesture of spanking it on
Speaker 2: the bottom, the gesture of early feeding at peanuts and
Speaker 2: sending it all to stuff podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
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