About one-half of all edible peanuts produced in the United States are used to make peanut butter and peanut spreads. By law and industry standard, any product labelled "peanut butter" in the U. S. must be at least 90% peanuts. The remaining 10% may be salt, sweetener and an emulsifier (hardened vegetable oil which prevents the peanut oil from separating and rising to the top).
The ancient South American Indians were the first to make and eat peanut butter, and one of the peanut foods invented by Dr. George Washington Carver was similar to peanut butter. Historical reference has it, however, that peanut butter was invented by a physician in St. Louis about 1890 as a health food for the elderly. No one remembers the physician's name, although records show that in 1903 Ambrose W. Straub of St. Louis patented a machine to make peanut butter. Also during that period (1895), Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (of breakfast cereal fame) patented the process of making peanut butter for the patients at his Battle Creek Sanatorium, a health food retreat in Michigan.
Basically, all peanut butter is made by a similar process. First the raw, shelled peanuts are roasted and cooled, then the skins are removed (blanched.) Some manufacturers split the kernels and remove the heart of the peanut as well. The hearts can be saved to make peanut oil and the skins left over from blanching can be sold for animal feed. The blanched peanut kernels are electronically sorted or hand picked one last time to be sure only good, wholesome kernels are used in peanut butter.
The peanuts are ground, usually through two grinding stages, to produce a smooth, even-textured butter. The peanuts are heated during the grinding to about 170 degrees F . Once the emulsifiers are added and mixed, the butter is cooled rapidly to 120 degrees F or below. This crystallizes the emulsifiers, thus trapping the peanut oil that was released by the grinding. To make chunky peanut butter, peanut granules are added to the creamy peanut butter. The peanut butter is then packed into containers for sale at stores.
Natural peanut butter does not have any emulsifers added. As a result, when the peanut butter is packed into jars, the oil in the product separates and rises to the top of the jar. When you want to use the peanut butter, simply stir the oil back into the peanut butter and then spread it on your bread, toast or whatever you plan to use it with!
 
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