Do you know your favourite peanut butter was originally a potion?
Have you ever dug your fingers in crunchy, smooth peanut butter? We bet you have! Peanut butter is made from roasted, ground peanuts and tastes fantastic, to say the least. This versatile spread goes well with various foods, including bread, crackers and apples. And there are many ways to enjoy peanut butter. For example, you can make a smoothie, a simple peanut sauce or even a sandwich! But do you know how it came into being? Well, here’s the birth and journey of peanut butter for you.
Created as a protein substitute
All of you have grown up with Kellogg’s cereals, right? Well, the man behind this breakfast staple is the one who first conceptualised peanut butter. We are talking about Harvey Kellogg, an American doctor and nutritionist. Surprised? What is more surprising is that he did not create peanut butter for kids. The first batch of this spread was made for older patients at the Battle Creek Sanatorium, a health resort in Michigan, where Kellogg was working at the time. They needed nutrition and protein but could not chew on meat. Kellogg thought making a paste out of peanuts would be a good protein substitute. So, in 1895, he patented peanut butter, which was made by boiling nuts and grinding them into an easy-to-digest paste. According to Kellogg, it was ‘the most delicious nut butter you’ve ever tasted’. Turns out he was right. Wouldn’t you agree?
Being an advocate of a plant-based diet, Kellogg emphasized on using peanut butter as a healthy substitute for meat. His efforts, along with those of his famous American clients, helped in popularising peanut butter as a healthy delicacy! And soon, the demand for peanut butter grew, so did the need for large-scale production.
Peanut butter becomes a household name
Joseph Lambert, a worker at Kellogg’s sanatorium, created machinery to make smooth peanut butter on a large scale. He made changes to meat grinders to make them more suitable for grinding peanuts alongside creating a roaster, a blancher (to remove the skin) and a hand grinder. Eventually, as the popularity of peanut butter increased, he left Kellogg’s and founded the Lambert Food Company in 1896 to mass-produce peanut butter. He set set up more mills to launch more peanut butter firms. With his large scale, automation and efficiency, peanut butter prices decreased! The peanut butter soon became a household name.
Peanut butter becomes even more popular during World War I
During the early 19th century, the popularity of peanut butter was on the rise. The start of World War I (1914-1918) only contributed to the demand of this spread. How? Due to the scarcity of meat during this time, American customers began to turn to peanuts, all because of Kellogg’s nutritional advice! Government brochures highlighted the importance of peanuts in their ‘meatless Monday’ meal. This growing popularity contributed to increased sales of peanut butter. In 1917, the Daily Missourian, a newspaper, claimed that Americans may soon begin eating peanut bread (bread with peanut butter) and using peanut oil for salad.
Peanut butter poses a tricky problem
However, despite this popularity, peanut butter presented a tricky issue that demanded a fix. The oil would separate from the butter when stored for long. Historian Andrew Smith claims that in order to deal with this, that manufacturers would suggest local shopkeepers swirl peanut butter using a wooden paddle. If this was not constantly done, the oil would separate and degrade. People knew that swirling the butter was a temporary fix, and they needed innovation to tackle this issue!
Hydrogenated peanut butter is introduced as a solution
Joseph Rosefield, a resident of California, was well aware of this issue. In 1921, he sought a patent for using a chemical process called partial hydrogenation. This process involves turning the oil in peanut butter, which is liquid at room temperature, into a solid or semisolid oil that stays blended at room temperature. Thus, constant mixing of peanut butter was no longer a necessity. This process made the peanut butter more stable, and the shopkeepers no longer had to swirl it constantly.
The modern crunchy peanut butter
In the 1930s, Rosefield founded a brand for hydrogenated peanut butter and called it Skippy. The crunchy peanut butter produced by this brand came with wide-mouth jars! This turned around the fate of this spread making it so popular that tins of Skippy were carried overseas with service troops during World War II (1939-1945). When meat shortage returned, people once more turned to peanut butter. In 2020, Skippy and Jif (a brand of peanut butter by The J.M. Smucker Company), introduced squeezable tubes of peanut butter. So, now you can spread it without even using a spoon!