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