Does Peanut Butter Go Bad? Food Safety & Storing Peanut Butter

Peanut butter, a treat that you either love so much you could eat it with a spoon, or completely loath and can’t stand the thought of its sticky consistency gluing your mouth shut. 

Either way it is something that most of us have had sit in our kitchen cupboards at some point in time. Maybe you even threw it out upon its rediscovery because lord only knows when it was opened, but, does it go bad?

Peanut butter is so loved that in the time between starting school and graduation, a child will eat 1500 Peanut butter and jam sandwiches in the U.S. Now ask yourselves this, for such an iconic household favorite, how do we know so little about it?

Let’s take a closer look at this salty treat and find out.

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Where Did Peanut Butter Come From?

Peanut butter is a Canadian creation.  Oh, of course, only the creator of such yumminess could suggest pairing it with strawberry jam. Peanuts are high in protein and are a great way of getting our daily dose. 

Back in 1884 peanut butter was invented, and you will never guess why! In the late 1800’s, it was likelier than not that people would have missing teeth and that made eating a healthy balanced diet very difficult.  

A chemist named Marcellus Gilmore Edison created this delicacy for people who were struggling to chew crunchy foods and lean meats and therefore became scarily weak and protein deficient. 

Sugar was incorporated into the nutty paste to transform the consistency from rather runny to a harder and more food-like form. Back then, you could purchase your nut butter for only 6 cents per pound. Bargain.

Weird and Wonderful Peanut Butter Facts

• The law (in America) has demanded that any company selling peanut butter and puts ‘peanut butter’ on its labels must contain 90% peanuts.
•  China has the largest number of peanut farms to date.
• American citizens have promoted two men from peanut farmers to presidents. Thomas Jefferson, who grew up farming during summer and winter, and Jimmy Carter, whose whole family were peanut farmers going back many generations. Jimmy actually managed the family’s peanut farm at one point.
• Did you know there are six cities in America named, well guess… Peanut? It’s true.
• While peanut butter is a phenomenon in America and Canada, Europeans eat roughly only 1 tablespoon per year.
• If you collect one-acres worth of peanuts you will successfully make well over 30,000 peanut butter and jam sandwiches.
•  A British World Record holder named Colin Jackson gained his title of ‘furthest peanut thrower’ in 2008 when he threw a peanut 37.92 meters in the city of Cardiff, Wales.
• 540 peanuts gave their lives to fill your 12-ounce jar full of peanut butter.

Well, now we sure are that little bit wiser about the peanut butter mysteries of the world. Peanut butter isn’t just for spreading on toast these days, it is used to make sauces, cakes, chocolate bars and even paired with chicken. So how can peanut butter maniacs like yourselves incorporate more nutty goodness in your meals? 

Top Peanut Butter Food Creations

Peanut butter isn’t doing too bad on the front of the carb, with only 3.5 grams per tablespoon. It also has a high percent of good fats along with Magnesium. 

For those of you that don’t know, magnesium is extremely important for people with diabetes. Due to the nature of the condition, high blood sugar levels dramatically decrease magnesium in diabetic.

• Because peanut butter can even be eaten on a Ketogenic diet, many dieters enjoy eating no-bake peanut butter balls. The even better news is that you can make them with as little as three ingredients.
• How does peanut butter curried chicken sound? Indian delight has become more and more popular in the western world.
• Peanut butter spicy sauce, finely chop chilies, jalapenos, ginger, and garlic and mix in with organic sugar-free peanut butter. You won’t regret it! A great accompaniment to a spicy Thai home-cooked meal.
• Peanut butter cheesecake. Ohh I’m drooling just thinking about it.
• Simple vegetables in peanut sauce, Great for vegetarians. Add some fried tofu to the mix and you are as good as done.
• Slow-cooked pork with peanut butter sauce is a scrumptious Chinese dish you should try making at home.  

Once you have tried making all your peanut butter dishes I’m sure there will be none left over to throw in the cupboard, therefore making your initial question slightly irrelevant to you now peanut Kings and Queens. But we should know just for future reference, you know if we need to educate a friend or two about this lovely treat.

The answer is that yes it can go bad. Organic peanut butter is likely to go bad faster than processed peanut butter as it doesn’t have high sugar content. That being said, processed and unprocessed peanut butter’s have a very low water content, making it difficult for any really bad bacteria to live in there. 

Eating slightly off peanut butter won’t do anything to you other than make your taste buds shed a tear or two.  So don’t fret if you had a mouthful from a suspicious tub of the stuff. Most peanut butter tubs will state that once opened you must eat it within four or so months.

The past four months keep the jar refrigerated, this will stop any bacteria in its tracks and will also slow down any oil separation that often occurs in peanut butter. If you, like me, can’t keep track of when you open food trust the taste test.

Like I said the peanut butter may be ‘bad’ as in bad tasting but it won’t do anything ‘bad’ to you so please don’t rush to throw your tub away and try it first. 

Use your gut instinct, if it doesn’t taste right then get rid of it. If it still has its usual yummy flavor then keep it and experiment with one of the above ideas, or better yet make up your own! 

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