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.
Apropos of nothing: The True origins of Peanut Butter (condensed into a few minutes)
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.
Hah, yeah and in other news, noted scientist Ralph Wiggum identifies primary scent component in feline exhalation.