“the peanut butter standard put many lawyers’ children through college.”

February 10, 2016 8:27 AM

Atlas Obscura brings us the story of the mid-20th Century "Peanut Butter Hearings", where the Peanut Butter Manufacturers Association faced off with the FDA (and the Peanut Butter Grandma, a.k.a. Ruth Desmond, head of the Federation of Homemakers) to hammer out the exact percentage of peanut butter that had to be peanuts. (via Mental Floss)
posted by Etrigan (41 comments total)

please don't be about acceptable rat parts per jar, please don't be about acceptable rat parts per jar ... oh thank god.
posted by tocts at 8:31 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

But insect parts are cool, right? I mean, protein.
posted by Halloween Jack at 8:36 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

I accidentally bought a jar of Skippy "Natural" once. It is not peanut butter, but "peanut butter spread". So, less than 90% peanuts. It tasted (and spread) pretty much nothing like real peanut butter. It was terrible. It wound up in the trash.

What makes it "natural," you ask? I guess that it uses palm oil instead of hydrogenated vegetable oil? Garbage product, garbage marketing, fuck those guys.

(For what it's worth, the peanut butter of choice in our house is Stop & Shop brand natural, although I keep forgetting to check if it's labelled organic, which I'm told is less-than-ideal for peanuts.)
posted by uncleozzy at 8:49 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

so are we celebrating the 90% standard, or just observing how the process worked (and I'm saddened by the ending paragraph about how the FDA only cares about what's on the label .. )

Because I'm reminded of the recent post on the blue about what's mayo (and what's not mayo) that I can't find at the moment -- about the vegan spread that the FDA was cracking down on for calling it mayo, when it does not contain the ingredients the FDA says must be in mayo.
posted by k5.user at 8:51 AM on February 10, 2016

Peanut butter should have one ingredient, unless it's salted peanut butter, in which case it would be two. I grew up eating shitty gummy sugarbomb garbage "peanut" butter like most kids in the seventies, but you couldn't pay me to eat that garbage now (see also: margarine). Mind you, even terrible fakebutter is still better than that war-ration chocolate hazelnut cake frosting that's in vogue these days, but people are crazy.
posted by sonascope at 8:53 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

On a more serious note, this is an interesting issue that still arises today. While I totally understand the FDA's move towards more regulation of labeling (versus content), I'm not convinced that's necessarily a great solution. It seems to lead inevitably to cleverly worded phrases on packaging, or the use of adjectives to imply less artifice than is present (e.g. "Made with real cream" on a product that can only legally call itself "Dairy Whipped Topping" -- technically true, but clearly hoping to be misread as the more desirable "Made from real cream").
posted by tocts at 8:56 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Mandatory ingredient listing is a much more efficient strategy for the FDA than regulating nomenclature product-by-product. 12 years, just for peanut butter. Jesus.
posted by yesster at 8:59 AM on February 10, 2016

Oh man, how did I not know about Ruth Desmond before? What an awesome person. Part of the group of women who saw the lack of regulation and fought to change the conditions. And I love the quote from her in this article, where she told a senior General Foods executive at a press conference that, “it amazes me how you gentlemen in the food industry are always concerned about having high quality food yourself. But you want the rest of us to eat sawdust.”

I was interested enough to try and find out more about her. She worked with Ralph Nadar on regulations of the meat industry and I found another quote from her on his web page. Ms. Desmond chuckles when she recalls the battles with the industry’s male lawyers: “They thought we’d go back to bridge,” she says, “but we didn’t. I also love that fact that she celebrated the end of the peanut butter case by moving on to regulations concerning hot dogs. Oof, her fight on whether they could really be labelled "all-meat" or "all-beef" seems to be a moving target. Not sure I feel that's resolved satisfactorily today.

You can see that same process in places like Flint, when regulation and safety have come so unraveled, many of the citizens are going to become warriors in the field of regulation.
posted by dawg-proud at 9:00 AM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'm willing to accept all manner of varying opinions about peanut butter as long as we all agree that creamy peanut butter is an offense against god.
posted by Pope Guilty at 9:04 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

Peanut butter should have one ingredient, unless it's salted peanut butter, in which case it would be two.

except the "Teddie's" peanut butter with the flax seed oil mixed in is really good.
posted by ennui.bz at 9:04 AM on February 10, 2016

The phrase "made with" on a product label, when translated from marketingspeak into a human language, reads "we're laughing at you imbeciles in the conference room."
posted by sonascope at 9:06 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

unless it's salted peanut butter

Unsalted peanut butter, feh. I usually avoid buying the (good-value!) Kirkland peanut butter from Costco because it's not salty enough. I feel like a schmuck sprinkling salt in my peanut butter sandwich.
posted by uncleozzy at 9:07 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

"Made with" pales in comparison to "made with ingredients like . . ."

It's made with ingredients similar to, but not exactly the same as, the things we're mentioning.
posted by yesster at 9:11 AM on February 10, 2016 [2 favorites]

I know this sort of thing has always been a popular "LOL STOOPID GUBMINT WASTING TAX MONEYZ" target, but, honestly, I'm ok with standards being established, however flawed the process may be. I mean, otherwise, you'd have shelves lined with "peanut" butter with 10% rat parts, brightly labeled as "Organic" and absolutely no actual ingredients listed.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:16 AM on February 10, 2016 [7 favorites]

is it juice? no. then cannot use word 'juice'.
is it cream? no. then cannot use word 'cream'.
is it cheese? no. then cannot use word 'cheese'.
...

label and regulate the shit out of food. literally and metaphorically.
posted by j_curiouser at 9:19 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

(I am contemplating what "cream cheese juice" would look and taste like and am not happy.)
posted by benito.strauss at 9:25 AM on February 10, 2016 [6 favorites]

so are we celebrating the 90% standard, or just observing how the process worked (and I'm saddened by the ending paragraph about how the FDA only cares about what's on the label .. )

Because I'm reminded of the recent post on the blue about what's mayo (and what's not mayo) that I can't find at the moment -- about the vegan spread that the FDA was cracking down on for calling it mayo, when it does not contain the ingredients the FDA says must be in mayo.

That's been resolved, apparently. They can't call it mayonnaise, but they can still call it Just Mayo.
posted by Karaage at 9:28 AM on February 10, 2016

Unsalted peanut butter, feh. I usually avoid buying the (good-value!) Kirkland peanut butter from Costco because it's not salty enough. I feel like a schmuck sprinkling salt in my peanut butter sandwich.

Try some truffle salt. Then you will feel like a snob.
posted by srboisvert at 9:29 AM on February 10, 2016

When I mistakenly bought a jar of unsalted some time back, I was annoyed by the crunchy-crunch of added salt crystals in my peanut-butter-and-jalapeno-jelly sandwich until I realized that I can use the same salt I hand-grind to the requisite fineness with a mortar and pestle for proper adherence and distribution in a bowl of popcorn...which now reminds me that I am indeed a food dork.
posted by sonascope at 9:53 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Fortunately I have a tin palette. I couldn't tell the difference with a gun to my head between my Walmart Great Value Crunchy Natural Peanut Butter Spread with 85% peanuts and one with 90% . Nor do I care since all food is chemistry and almost every bit of consumable produce is a cultivar resulting from human genetic engineering. Life is short and there are far better things to spend time worrying about. Well, unless you are an epicure or a zealot...
posted by jim in austin at 9:59 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Oh man do I have Opinions about peanut butter. Most of the megabrand "natural" ones taste like butts, and I like salt in my peanut butter which rules out half the smaller brands. (FYI for Canadians, the Loblaws Presidents Choice Blue Menu Just Peanuts How Many Names Does This Need is perfect except for that it's unsalted.)

Right now we are buying Adams (which appears to be a PNW brand. I'd never seen it but my husband who grew up in Vancouver knew it), which is peanuts and "less than 1%" salt, which is good but honestly I wouldn't mind just a smidge of sugar in my peanut butter. Otherwise I have to end up adding jam or honey to make it taste right, which I guess isn't the worst. Bonus is that it comes in a glass jar for reusing purposes (right now there is a jar of sourdough culture on our counter)

My favourite food labeling weasel word is "creme".
posted by quaking fajita at 10:12 AM on February 10, 2016 [5 favorites]

I grew up on PB that had sugar right there as the second ingredient and now I am surrounded by health food stores that will never sell it what am I to eat
posted by Monochrome at 10:21 AM on February 10, 2016

As long as the peanuts are activated, it doesn't matter how you butter them.
posted by blue_beetle at 10:42 AM on February 10, 2016 [3 favorites]

That Just Mayo thing still seems silly to me. It's clearly not Just Mayo, but mayo like, I guess it's better than 12 years in litigation?
posted by Carillon at 10:52 AM on February 10, 2016

blue_beetle -- not just activated, but alkalized too.
posted by k5.user at 10:55 AM on February 10, 2016

Hey everyone you know what is fucking awesome? Powdered peanut butter, that's what. It's like what's left if you extracted the peanut oil from peanut butter and is all the flavor and none the satfat.

Mix yourself up some no-fat no-sugar chocolate-ish pudding and put some of the powder right into the mix, and then mix some of the mix with water until it's a goo and swirl a ribbon of that goo into it. It is a motherfucking foodgasm.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 10:57 AM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Peanut butter is fine, but I've become addicted to a mixed butter made from coarse ground peanuts, hazelnuts, cashew nuts and almonds. I like it unsweetened and unsalted, which means I also have to pay for a whole load of woo-woo about organic hand roasted virgin blanched dream catching. But I don't mind. Because mixed nuts are the future and I'm living the dream.
posted by samworm at 11:02 AM on February 10, 2016

My secret shame: pb mixed with a single packet of hot chocolate mix, eaten with a spoon, and a glass of 1% milk.

I'll show myself out.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 11:07 AM on February 10, 2016 [4 favorites]

HUNGRY NOW
posted by Night_owl at 12:08 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Unicorn on the cob: I have indulged in nearly the exact same concoction. Sometimes I put chia seeds in it.
posted by dehowell at 1:48 PM on February 10, 2016

Creamy or chunky, dehowell? uh, asking for a friend.
posted by Unicorn on the cob at 3:54 PM on February 10, 2016

I buy the proper 100% peanut butter about half of the time because I know it is a better food, but really I just want something that spreads nicely on toast in the morning and Kraft or no-name store-brand does that just fine. There's a Kraft 100% peanut peanut butter that weirds me out because it tastes pretty much the same as their regular peanut butter without all the other things they put in it. I guess they use additional saturated peanut oils and the like, but because it is all peanut they can still just say it is 100% peanut the same way that Tropicana can say their juice is 100% orange. It weirds me out but it is the one I buy if I see it because it is a best of both worlds thing to me.
posted by any portmanteau in a storm at 4:12 PM on February 10, 2016

Mmmm, Adams peanut butter. Originally a Northwest brand, now owned by Smuckers. We love the unsalted, but it seems to be widely available only in creamy...not an abomination, but not ideal. So yeah, I will buy salted to get some crunch.

Stir, stir, stir...
posted by lhauser at 4:13 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

Stop 'n Chop peanut butter is not organic, but nevertheless a great product.
posted by xtian at 4:19 PM on February 10, 2016

If you want to be a total snob, buy the fresh-ground kind at either your local hippie co-op or Whole Foods which doesn't separate and is the right middle ground between smooth commerical PB and "chunky" which is inevitably smooth with peanut bits thrown in. I don't want that, I want less finely ground peanut butter. Skippy isn't just ground it's conched for crissake.

Loblaws Presidents Choice Blue Menu Just Peanuts How Many Names Does This Need

I'm not the only one who noticed how insane Loblaw's naming scheme are!

Also, jokes about how many lawyers got paid aside, this is a great example of the good side of the super litigious US culture. I'm pretty thankful that we don't have to have half-cottonseed oil peanut butter sweetened with glycerin.
posted by GuyZero at 4:55 PM on February 10, 2016

No midwest Koeze fans in the thread? I grew up on Koeze PB. Yeah, salt and peanuts are the only acceptable ingredients (and damned the world for deciding that salt shouldn't be there - its increasingly difficult to find proper PB)
posted by el io at 5:30 PM on February 10, 2016

Maybe we get bad peanuts here in Australia, but I usually find that "natural" peanut butter is somewhat rancid. I like those creamy, creamy peanut butters that are flavored with salt and sugar - they remind me of being a kid. I can just eat that stuff with a spoon, and a glass of milk to unstick my mouth. Also, Vegemite and peanut butter on toast is fantastic.
posted by Joe in Australia at 6:25 PM on February 10, 2016

Peanut butter should have one ingredient, unless it's salted peanut butter, in which case it would be two.

PeterPan peanut butter is so delicious, tho.
posted by alrightokay at 6:26 PM on February 10, 2016

What, no love for Trader Joes Salted Crunchy PB? Stir it up and eat it off a spork, that's how I roll. On the other hand my kid bought me some of this caffeinated PB for Xmas and, while I thought it tasted fine, it had me bouncing off the walls in a way I don't care to relive any time soon.
posted by biddeford at 8:42 PM on February 10, 2016 [1 favorite]

From TFA: The hearings dragged on, with the manufacturers arguing that the increased percentage would cause a “stifling of innovation” and that it would cause prices to rise for the consumer.

I love how companies/entire industries and their lobbyists often use the threat of innovation being stifled to oppose any new regulations. And yet, their later actions prove they were vastly overestimating the costs of compliance or just plain bluffing.
posted by cynical pinnacle at 10:06 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]

Not to mention that stifling innovation was the entire fucking point of the hearings -- the FDA didn't want people "innovating" new stuff to put in peanut butter and still call it peanut butter, because people will eat peanut butter and might not eat Jif's Creamy More Or Less Peanutesque Spreadable.
posted by Etrigan at 10:12 AM on February 11, 2016 [1 favorite]