You’ll Never Believe Where Peanut Butter Came From
We take it for granted. That jar of creamy coffee-colored, peanut buttery goodness that seems to last forever. It’s forever been the perfect complement to chocolate, jelly, oats, smoothies, or just a spoon when we’re feeling particularly snacky! Or… has it? Has this deliciously sweet & nutty treat, one that has sparked a smooth or crunchy debate for decades, really always been there?
It has, but not in the way we know it. Its moniker being highly inaccurate, considering peanut butter neither has butter nor nuts (peanuts are actually legumes), peanut butter lived a life long before it sat on our shelves. Let’s skip on back to a time when peanut butter wasn’t a staple of the masses, but a health food for the upper classes…1985. John Harvey Kellog (that’s right… the cereal guy was a doctor too.. genius!I) first patented a process to solve a problem. At his Western Health Reform Institute, lay a need for a protein-rich substance for patients who were without teeth.
As peanut butter’s popularity rose, in steps George Washington Carver who encouraged farmers to replace cotton with peanut crops. (Fun fact: More than half of the American peanut crop is used for making peanut butter.) Other doctors and men took a swing at the process and developed and patented machines for creating peanut butter. In 1922 Joseph Rosefield took hold of a peanutty problem- peanut butter didn’t travel very well. He invented a process for smoothing the peanut butter, using partially hydrogenated oil to keep it from separating. Peter Pan, a well-known peanut butter company to this day, partnered with Rosefield until 1932 when Rosefield broke off to form Skippy. He’s the father of debate- the father of chunky peanut butter- the first to reintroduce peanut bits to the butter.
In a hurry, Procter & Gamble were soon to follow, adding molasses and sugar to the recipe and releasing it under a new name, Jif. All this competition sparked quite the controversy in the peanut butter world about its identity, percentage of peanuts, and slogans.
But you’d never know all the history that lies in a spoonful of peanut butter.. All you know is that when you bite into a delicious peanut butter filled truffle, or peanut butter cup from The Chocolate Truffle, it’s the best thing you’ve ever had!
