The only ingredients on the label are “peanuts, salt.”
We keep peanuts unrefrigerated in the pantry… we keep salt unrefrigerated in the pantry… so how come when you mash them together it makes something that (according to the jar) must be refrigerated after opening?
P.S. I put “good” in quotes because all peanut butter is good. What I mean by “good” peanut butter is the healthier stuff that you have to mix the oil back into and there are only the above mentioned ingredients.
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I’ve never refridgerated peanut butter?? I’ve been eating it most days for at least 45 years and it wouldn’t even occur to me to refridgerate… Having said that I eat ‘Sun Pat’ here in the UK and it does not contain palm oil so maybe that’s it. I wouldnt go near any of the palm oil ones with a barge pole. That stuff is dangerous..
The fat in peanut butter is unsaturated, and so these cats are really good at sliding around. They don’t line up with each other as saturated fats can. So unsaturated fats are liquid at room temperature (usually). So, for regular peanut butter they’ll add another fat to help keep everything solid at room temperature.
The “peanuts and salt” peanut butter is liquid because it only has the unsaturated fat from the peanuts.
Edit: the oil and peanut matter separate out because the proteins and the oil don’t really like to stay mixed together. The oil would rather be with the oil, and the proteins would rather be with the proteins. They’re also different densities, which helps the separation.
Edit: fats are good at sliding around lmao
To prevent seperation.
Good peanut butter just uses peanut oil, which melts at 37 F, flows, and seperates.
Big brand peanut butters add oils with higher melting points (palm, coconut, or hydrogenated other) which are solid at room temperature and therefore won’t seperate out.
So if you want your 2 ingredient peanut butter to act like a big brand peanut butter, put it in the fridge.
I like to store my nut butters upside down in the fridge so the oil is at the bottom when I flip it right side up to use it. Makes for easier mixing.
So check it out. Peanut butter like Laura Scudders is natural peanut butter. This generally means the peanut butter has not gone through the hydrogenation process. At room temperature, oil separates from the solids. The peanut butter is made up of all these carbons and hydrogens, but they’re kind of crinkled and not evenly distributed – the fat doesn’t pack together well, so it eventually, slowly separates. With something like JIF or Skippy, we hydrogenate the oil to improve shelf stability and product spread ability. We basically add extra hydrogen to the oil in the peanut butter so now there are nice even numbers of molecules and everything is straight and lines up correctly (molecularly).
Nut oils also tend to go rancid if you leave it out for too long. I like to store my peanut butter in the fridge after I open it to keep it fresh longer.
I think it’s to prevent the oil from separating out. Keeping it refrigerated makes everything more viscous and prevents separation. I don’t know if this means it’s good or not, but generally this is the case for products that doesn’t have any emulsifiers added. If your peanut butter has emulsifiers then the oil won’t separate out.
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