Peanut Butter: Singing its Praises

This week marked the passing of National Peanut Butter Day, and in honor of one of America's favorite creamy treats, we have a few words to say:

Mainly, "yummy, yummy, and yummy!" ...spread about in a generous creamy swath of yummy.

Peanut butter has become a mainstay of American diet since the early 20th century, when it originally appeared as a means of providing people with a protein that is more easily consumed than meats.

But, according to the Sturgis Article's piece on the history of peanut butter, the Incas were grinding peanuts as far back as 950 B.C!

Smart people, those Incas.

Peanut butter offers us more than delicious PB&Js, heavenly Girl Scout Cookies, and the perfect accompaniment to chocolate. It's high in protein and provides a lot of that "good" fat we're all supposed to be getting more of.

The average American child will eat over 1,500 peanut butter sandwiches by the time they're 18, making this one of the most popular and healthiest ways that kids get protein and good fats in their diet.

And Americans in general eat about 3 pounds of peanut butter per person, each and every year.

So we raise our glass (of milk, of course!) to you, peanut butter. Thanks for providing unbeatable flavor, cost efficient protein and other nutrients, and overall convenience of use to American families for the past 80 years.

While we're at it, we'll also tip our hats to George Washington Carver for his many years of dedicated research on the humble legume the peanut and for helping make peanut butter what it is today.