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Peanut Butter Developed as a Health Food

St. Louis Physician Sought an Easily-Digested Protein Source

March 5, 2007

• Judge Nixes Peanut Butter Class Action • FDA Failed to Follow Up on 2004 Peanut Butter Contamination • Peter Pan Returning To Store Shelves • Consumers Still Getting Sick From Tainted Peanut Butter • Fourth Peanut Butter Death Reported • Peanut Butter Recall Extended to Products Made as Early as 2004 • Peanut Butter Scare Stirs Congress • Consumers Left Holding the Peanut Butter Jar • Earlier Peanut Butter Contamination Kept Quiet • Peanut Butter Developed as a Health Food • Third Death Blamed on Peanut Butter • Peanut Butter Recalls Spread to Ice Cream & Desserts • FDA Says Peanut Butter Salmonella Outbreak Is "Ongoing" • Salmonella Confirmed in Peanut Butter • Second Death Linked To Tainted Peanut Butter • Death Linked To Tainted Peanut Butter • ConAgra Recalls Tainted Peanut Butter as Complaints Mount • FDA Widens Peanut Butter Warning • Reports of Peanut Butter-Borne Illness Increase • FDA Warns of Salmonella in Peanut Butter --- • Consumer Complaints about Peanut Butter --- • Salmonella: What It Is • More about Food Safety ...

In light of all that's happened the last few weeks, it may be surprising that peanut butter was invented by a doctor.

A St. Louis physician developed it in 1890, looking for a protein source that could be easily digested. It was widely sold as a nutrition supplement for years and was a big hit in 1904 at the St. Louis World's Fair.

The modern, non-separating version was invented in 1922 by Joseph L. Rosefield, and became a popular lunch for schoolchildren, although today many schools prohibit food containing peanut products because of the rising incidence of severe peanut allergies in children.

Both peanut butter and jelly were packed with United States Army K-rations in World War II. The combination proved so popular that returning GIs made peanut butter and jelly a standard American food.

George Washington Carver, an African American botanical researcher at the Tuskegee Institute, was a leading spokesman for the peanut industry in the early 20th Century. Had he invented peanut butter, it would probably have been called goober butter.

"Goober" is the African name for peanuts. Slaves being brought to America were fed goobers to keep them alive during the brutal crossings. Goobers remained popular with slaves, who ate them both for nutrition and for a small touch of their lost homeland.

Though Carver didn't invent peanut butter, he did develop more than 300 byproducts including oil, gums, resins, and pectin, thus creating a market for the peanuts grown by southern farmers, whom he called "his people," according to Mary Alice Powell, writing in the Toledo Blade.

By the way, Powell, the paper's former food editor, includes a recipe for those who have a food blender and want to make their own peanut butter rather than trust Peter Pan and other packaged brands.

Obviously, you want to have healthy peanuts. Blend one cup of shelled peanuts with 1 1/2 to 3 tablespoons of oil. Blending time depends on whether the results will be crunchy or smooth and that, Powell notes, is always good for debate.

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