Are Americans Weaned on Peanut Butter?

Merkavar wrote: »

Alatariel75 wrote: »

I know I grew to love it when I lived in the states, Australia is only now really getting on the peanut butter train.

Really? I'm Australian and have had peanut or 20+ years.

Peanut butter and butter sandwhiches. Crunchy peanut butter on toast.

There was always a jar or two in the house.

I havent had it much lately, I would imagine what I had would be too high in calories.

Is peanut butter really not that popular in Australia?

Oh, we've always had it in jars, but I mean the whole "peanut butter and..." thing seem to only now be catching on. I remember as a kid going to the states and finding peanut butter and chocolate ice cream, peanut butter varieties of common candy bars, peanut butter cookes etc... It's only in very recent years those things are available here.

I've always loved it - even when had it for the first time as a little kid in Brazil, then when moved to Australia at 6 years old it became a staple in my lunch box. It's great alone, with honey, with jam (or jelly!) and with Nutella - OMFG. And now FINALLY I came across PB2 at the health food store - had it in my proats this morning and died and went to heaven because I haven't eaten proper peanut butter since I started my weight loss thing 8 months ago. Oh heavenly!

carlyp79 wrote: »

I'm in Australia and I grew up on PB. On crackers, bread, celery... it's cheap and tasty. I cheerfully feed it to my twin toddlers, and sometimes they just eat a glob of it off a spoon.

yep - my daughter also eats it straight out of the jar.

and complains that she can't take it to daycare because of the no nuts policy - try to explain to a little kid that some kids get sick if they eat peanut butter and can see her face little going "wtf? how can you get sick from eating this!?"

I'm not that big a fan of plain peanut butter, but I'm a SUCKER for the flavoured kinds, like nuts n more toffee crunch, salted caramel jif whips and other fancy peanut butter+protein spreads. Plain I prefer almond butter. Its SOO good in oatmeal and I love making sweet omelettes with pb and syrup on them mmmmm

My mom used to pack it in my lunch everyday. And she made me peanut butter sandwiches when we ate lunch at home. And i used to eat it out of the jar by the spoonful. I figure that peanut butter was probably one of the main reasons why I was fat. People over here like it because it's cheap, travels well, and because pretty much all kids are willing to eat it without a fuss. Most are usually pretty sweet, too, and Americans tend to have a sweet tooth in general.

At my old school, we could bring in any foods we wanted. The school officials just made kids with severe allergies eat by themselves in the library. Maybe it's just because of the way I grew up (since that was normal and all,) but I kind of wish that more schools would do that instead of saying "No one in this 500+ person school can eat anything with peanuts in it because 3 people are allergic to them!" They won't have the luxury of people protecting them from their allergens forever. People stop caring once they leave public school. May as well learn how to avoid them on their own while in school. That's another discussion, though.

I still love peanut butter, but I have to weigh my portion out every time. While I can eyeball most things pretty accurately, getting a "spoonful" of peanut butter for me always ends up being 2+ servings.

Eh. I'm American and I'm, at best, indifferent to peanut butter. It's mostly the texture, I think.

earlnabby wrote: »

BeatriceCroacia wrote: »

And still my friends have not heard about it (I live in Croatia), but i loooooove it. Although I have to strugle to find it.
Btw I think pb in USA is something like nutella in Europe.

When my brother and SIL lived in France (1990-91), they had 2 pre-school aged children. They could get PB at a special "American" grocery but it was really expensive. The price of visiting and staying with them was one jar of PB per night of staying. When I went, the guy manning the security scanner couldn't figure out what all the jars and bottles were in my suitcase. I had to explain that I was taking 3 jars of PB and 2 bottles of unscented hairspray to my family in addition to my personal things. This was before the days of 9/11 and the TSA.

Lol. When I was teaching in West Africa I met two French women who worked not far from my school. We became friends and when we all left Africa we kept in touch. A year or so later I went to Paris for vacation and we had made plans to get together. I brought four HUGE jars of peanut butter, two for each of them. They had learned to love it in our village but the only jars they could find in France were, as you said, small and expensive.

I tried a PB&J today.

Good on you, Americans. It is quite tasty.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJOXTNdqrLo

So, Professor Carver's two dinner guests...Edward "Skippy" Williamson and Frederick "Jif" Armstrong - two white men - stole George Washington Carver's recipe for peanut butter, copyrighted it, and reaped untold fortunes from it. While Dr. Carver died penniless and insane, still trying to play a phonograph record with a peanut.

Need2Exerc1se wrote: »

firephoenix8 wrote: »

I've never liked peanut butter, though I grew up with peanut butter and jelly ("PBJ") sandwiches and boxed macaroni and cheese like most American kids. What I think is more bizarre than the sandwiches and chocolate and peanut butter candy, is putting peanut butter on all kinds of crazy things it obviously doesn't belong on. My dad used to put it on everything, and the weirdest one I remember was a hot dog. Pancakes (like with maple syrup and bacon) is fairly common. I'm pretty sure I could find someone who eats it on their eggs or hamburgers or steak or tuna salad if I tried.

The only one more bizarre is ranch dressing. I'm pretty sure some people I know think everything in the world tastes like ranch dressing or peanut butter or diet coke. *shudder*

What is the point of a pancake without peanut butter?? I often skip the pancake and just eat the peanut butter mixed with maple syrup. It's one of my favorite desserts.

This hurts me to read.

Pancake, wonderful.

Maple syrup (real maple syrup), wonderful.

Peanut butter, argh, you ruined it. Ick.

But it's still not as bad as the ranch dressing on everything stuff. I never ran into that as a kid -- ranch was a salad dressing, that's all, and not even the most popular one. So I refuse to accept that that's some American thing. Maybe it's regional or generational, but it's not American.