# What did the first peanut butter taste like? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 3, 2011, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540 "2011-05-03T02:26:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 4\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 9:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540/21 "2011-05-03T21:18:35Z")
Do you think that they actually roasted the peanuts before making the first peanut butter. I’d be willing to bet that the very first peanut butter was made from raw peanuts. ---
**Author:** ![SSgtBaloo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ac91a4/32.png) [@SSgtBaloo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SSgtBaloo)\ **Post date:** [May 3, 2011, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540/22 "2011-05-03T23:57:16Z")
Apropos of nothing: [The True origins of Peanut Butter (condensed into a few minutes)](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gwZVxeGF6aw) ---
**Author:** ![mcgato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ac8455/32.png) [@mcgato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mcgato)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540/23 "2011-05-04T00:53:32Z")
> [@Sigmagirl](#): > > I guess some do and some don’t. > [Jif](http://www.jif.com/Products/Details?categoryId=339&productId=954): “MADE FROM PEANUTS, SUGAR, PALM OIL, CONTAINS 2% OR LESS OF: SALT, MOLASSES.” > [Peter Pan Honey Roast Crunchy](http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Pan-Crunchy-16-3-Ounce-Plastic/dp/B002O12YHA): Peanut Butter (Roasted Peanuts, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils [Cottonseed And Rapeseed], Molasses, Salt, Partially Hydrogenated Cottonseed Oil), Sugar And Honey. Contains: Peanuts. > > Jif has sugar much higher on the list than molasses; Peter Pan (despite being called “Honey Roast,” has more molasses and sugar than it has honey) has it lower. I wonder how much molasses is used for color rather than for sweetener. > > ETA: I’m probably not reading that right. First they have the parentheses, and then the brackets. If you look closely at both of those packages, they are not peanut butter, but peanut butter **spread.** A peanut butter **spread** does not need to meet the standard of identity that I listed above. The Peter Pan one lists peanut butter as its first ingredient, then in parentheses lists the ingredients in the peanut butter. But when they cut it with the sugar and honey, it no longer meets the standard of identity for peanut butter. Thus the peanut butter **spread.** Europeans who have lived in the US often bemoan that fact that they can’t find peanut butter in Europe that is as good as in the US. Europe does not have a standard of identity for peanut butter, so it is all our equivalent of peanut butter **spread.** Remember that the most expensive part of peanut butter is the peanuts. Lower cost products will always lower the peanut content. This is a growing trend in the food business, changing from a food with a standard of identity to one without. Remember that I’m in the food industry, and I don’t like it either. A guy at work pointed out that the Philly cream cheese that comes in a tub is now listed as cream cheese **spread.** This is the product that I got used to being easy to spread on toasted bagels. I no longer buy that, as I went back to the cream cheese brick which is a bit tougher to spread. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Controvert](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dec6dc/32.png) [@The\_Controvert](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Controvert)\ **Post date:** [May 4, 2011, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540/24 "2011-05-04T12:31:24Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > Also: Probably the earliest fly swatters were nothing more than some sort of striking surface attached to the end of a long stick. Hah, yeah and in other news, noted scientist Ralph Wiggum identifies primary scent component in feline exhalation. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-did-the-first-peanut-butter-taste-like/580540.md?page=1)