# It's Peanut Paste not Peanut Butter **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [November 21, 2012, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694 "2012-11-21T06:54:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![ChefCaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@ChefCaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChefCaine)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/41 "2015-09-30T19:32:23Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > For some odd reason, my stepfather pronounced it pee-NUT butter. He also said hee-coff (using the old hiccough spelling, I guess) for hiccup. I think it was meant to drive me nuts. It appears to have worked. ---
**Author:** ![ChefCaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@ChefCaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChefCaine)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/42 "2015-09-30T19:41:54Z")
Peanut paste is peanuts crushed until it acquires a paste-like consistency, with absolutely nothing added. Peanut butter, on the other hand, is peanut paste with anything, from just a touch of salt to corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono and diglycerides, minerals, vitamins added. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/43 "2015-09-30T20:19:39Z")
> [@ChefCaine](#): > > Peanut butter, on the other hand, is peanut paste with anything, from just a touch of salt to corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono and diglycerides, minerals, vitamins added. I do not believe that is true. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/44 "2015-09-30T20:22:54Z")
> [@guizot](#): > > My grandmother always said, “You either call your Jiffy ‘peanut paste,’ or you call your tahini ‘sesame butter’–but as the Lord is my Witness, you can’t have your cake and eat it, too–not with margarine on both sides.” She continued saying it, all the way to Bellevue. This is the right, best answer. ---
**Author:** ![Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/channing_idaho_banks/32/250_2.png) [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Channing_Idaho_Banks)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/45 "2015-09-30T20:28:55Z")
> [@ChefCaine](#): > > Peanut paste is peanuts crushed until it acquires a paste-like consistency, with absolutely nothing added. Peanut butter, on the other hand, is peanut paste with anything, from just a touch of salt to corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono and diglycerides, minerals, vitamins added. I like this explanation, although, without a label, how is the consumer to know whether his peanut butter is adulturated or a pure paste? ---
**Author:** ![gnoitall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bb73d2/32.png) [@gnoitall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnoitall)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/46 "2015-09-30T20:31:38Z")
> [@CalMeacham](#): > > But “butter” has a history of referring to non-dairy butter-consistency food products. > Or didn’t they have Apple Butter in Australia? Apple goo. And that was the phrase that actually won in the marketing focus groups. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/47 "2015-09-30T20:43:02Z")
Peanut paste sounds like another one of those peculiar peanut derived products that George Washington Carver invented in the 19th century, along with “Oils, Emulsified with Mercury for Venereal Disease”, and “Evaporated Peanut Beverage”. ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/48 "2015-09-30T20:53:23Z")
> [@ChefCaine](#): > > Peanut paste is peanuts crushed until it acquires a paste-like consistency, with absolutely nothing added. Peanut butter, on the other hand, is peanut paste with anything, from just a touch of salt to corn syrup solids, sugar, soy protein, salt, hydrogenated vegetable oils, mono and diglycerides, minerals, vitamins added. [Yes, we found that out three years ago.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15721196&postcount=17) ---
**Author:** ![ChefCaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@ChefCaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChefCaine)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/49 "2015-09-30T21:09:04Z")
> [@Channing\_Idaho\_Banks](#): > > I like this explanation, although, without a label, how is the consumer to know whether his peanut butter is adulturated or a pure paste? You look at the ingredient list on the label. If it says anything other than PEANUTS, it is peanut butter. ---
**Author:** ![ChefCaine](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@ChefCaine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ChefCaine)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/50 "2015-09-30T21:11:12Z")
> [@cochrane](#): > > [Yes, we found that out three years ago.](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=15721196&postcount=17) And yet, as of an hour ago, Ike Witt still does not believe it. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/51 "2015-09-30T21:13:59Z")
I don’t believe it because I can buy a jar of nothing but ground up nuts and it says Peanut Butter on the label, not Peanut Paste. ---
**Author:** ![leahcim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/b4bc9f/32.png) [@leahcim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/leahcim)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/52 "2015-09-30T21:39:27Z")
> [@GreedySmurf](#): > > Up until ~1970’s, there were laws in place that prevented it being called Peanut Butter. In fact preventing a few different products being called ‘butter’ if they did not contain actual, ‘derived from milk’ butter. There was a push a few [years](http://www.salon.com/2010/04/30/soymilk_renaming_petition/) ago from an American dairy farmers group to prevent soy milk from being marketed as “milk”, as to avoid any confusion with actual milk. Presumably “peanut paste” is what happens when such people get to the point of making law. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2015, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/53 "2015-09-30T21:49:58Z")
> [@ChefCaine](#): > > You look at the ingredient list on the label. If it says anything other than PEANUTS, it is peanut butter. To a point. Finely ground whole peanuts produce a gooey product called peanut butter, which can be 100% those peanuts or up to 5% additives like sugar. If it’s less than 95% peanuts, it can’t be called peanut butter. The term “peanut paste” seems to be an entirely internal industry designation, not a food product. If it’s appeared in consumer land, I suspect “peanut paste” is a labeling workaround like “spread” or “loaf” that allows foodmakers to produce a product that’s more like Nutella (40% palm oil [nearly 100% saturated fat] and 45% sugar, with 10-13% ground hazelnuts, a pinch of cocoa and a dusting of skim milk powder) than anything labeled PB in accordance with FDA regs. While PB may not be a health food any more than juice is, it’s not the catchall of glop that some seem to think. Not even Jif. ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/54 "2015-10-01T04:21:08Z")
> [@Eliahna](#): > > Kah-s’l (doesn’t rhyme with hass’l) > vs > Kass’l Ah, it’s a vowel thing. > [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Something like “Kahrsill” (which is how I pronounce it, FWIW). > [@Irishman](#): > > Why do you put an r in there? (You’re non-rhotic, aren’t you.) Wait, I already posted to this thread, and made the remark I came here to make. :smack: > [@shiftless](#): > > Goober paste is the name I like but I can’t get it to stick. 😉 > [@bump](#): > > Peanut paste sounds like another one of those peculiar peanut derived products that George Washington Carver invented in the 19th century, along with “Oils, Emulsified with Mercury for Venereal Disease”, and “Evaporated Peanut Beverage”. So I looked it up, and son-of-a-gun, George Washington Carver did _ **not** _ invent peanut butter. I’ve been mislead. > **[Marcellus Gilmore Edson](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcellus_Gilmore_Edson)** > > Marcellus Gilmore Edson (February 7, 1849 – March 6, 1940) was a Canadian chemist and pharmacist. In 1884, he patented a way to make peanut paste, an early version of peanut butter. > Marcellus Gilmore Edson was born at Bedford in Quebec. In 1884 Edson invented a process to make "peanut paste" for the production of candy, and was awarded United States Patent No. 306727 for that invention. When cooled, his product had "a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment". The patent describes a ... > [@](#): > > Marcellus Gilmore Edson (February 7, 1849 – March 6, 1940) of Montreal, Quebec[1] was the first person to patent peanut butter, in 1884. Peanut flour already existed. His cooled product had “a consistency like that of butter, lard, or ointment” according to his patent application. He included the mixing of sugar into the paste so as to harden its consistency.[2] Also, there’s a wikipedia page on the difference between peanut butter and peanut paste. > **[Peanut paste](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peanut_paste)** > > Peanut paste is a product of peanuts used in sauces, cookies, crackers (and other baked goods), breakfast cereals and ice cream. > 'Peanut paste' is the main ingredient in some peanut butter recipes. > Peanut paste is obtained by several methods in which raw peanuts are roasted, blanched, and ground to create the peanut paste.\[citation needed\] > The distinction between peanut paste and peanut butter is not always clear cut in ordinary use. \[citation needed\] It appears that as an industry and marketing term, peanut butter is the product marketed to consumers directly, with or without sugar and other additives (to some limits), whereas peanut paste is a raw unadulterated product as marketed to industry for use in other products, such as candy bars or crackers and whatnot. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/55 "2015-10-01T04:49:32Z")
> [@levdrakon](#): > > No I will not eat a peanut paste and jam sandwich. Of course not. Everyone knows it’s a peanut paste and fruit goo sandwich. > [@shiftless](#): > > I call it peanut oleo. > > Goober paste is the name I like but I can’t get it to stick. Weird. My peanut butter sticks to everything. ---
**Author:** ![pulykamell](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pulykamell/32/3166_2.png) [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 6:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/56 "2015-10-01T06:05:04Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > I don’t believe it because I can buy a jar of nothing but ground up nuts and it says Peanut Butter on the label, not Peanut Paste. [Here is an example](https://www.smuckers.com/products/peanut-butter/natural-peanut-butter/natural-creamy-peanut-butter-with-no-salt-added-68). As said above, it appears to be an industry term. At the consumer level, it’s all peanut butter. ---
**Author:** ![Jeff\_Lichtman](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jeff_lichtman/32/1531_2.png) [@Jeff\_Lichtman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jeff_Lichtman)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/57 "2015-10-01T07:17:09Z")
Peanut paste is what you use to brush your peanuts. ---
**Author:** ![brovolone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a88e4f/32.png) [@brovolone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brovolone)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/58 "2015-10-01T07:32:29Z")
Why isn’t tomato paste called tomato butter? What’s the big deal with the word paste in peanut paste? Why can’t it just be called peanut paste instead of butter? Is it because paste is associated with like adhesive that’s used for crafts? Unappetizing? When I think of butter, I think of something that is unspreadable, cold, hard like a rock. Little square block you have to try to spread evenly. When I think of paste, I think of something that _is_ spreadable. Or margarine. Peanut margarine. The only other reason I can think of why it’d be called peanut butter is because you’d use a butter knife to spread it onto bread. A lot of people use a knife to spread mayo, jelly, and other things onto bread though. Peter Pan Peanut Paste. PPPP. Sounds better than Peter Pan Peanut Butter. > [@Irishman](#): > > It appears that as an industry and marketing term, peanut butter is the product marketed to consumers directly, with or without sugar and other additives (to some limits), whereas peanut paste is a raw unadulterated product as marketed to industry for use in other products, such as candy bars or crackers and whatnot. Meh. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/59 "2015-10-01T11:12:28Z")
If you think of butter as cold and hard, you’re doing it wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2015, 11:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694/60 "2015-10-01T11:22:07Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > I’ve always been fond of the German word for cream: _schlag_ (actually schlagsohne). I use it all the time, as in: give me a hot fudge sundae _mit schlag_. Also incorrectly for cream. Coffee _mit schlag, bitte_. In that gutteral, creaky fake German accent, of course. Say it with me: schlag. . .schlaaaaag. Ich schreien, du schreien, wir schreien für… Eiscreme? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/its-peanut-paste-not-peanut-butter/641694.md?page=4)