An abbreviated history of Peanut Butter Peanuts have been around a very long time. But we're not talkin about peanuts here, we are talkin about peanut butter. Peanut butter hasn't been around quite as long as the peanut. Peanut butter started a little more than 100 years ago in 1890 in America. Its purpose was a healthy, easy to digest protein substituted for patients that had troubles eating meat because of bad or no teeth. Soon after this a man named George A. Bayle Jr. mechanized the process of making peanut butter and began selling it and a patent was given to Abrose W. Straub for a machine that made peanut butter. This was in 1903. A year later C. H. Sumner, at the St. Louis Universal Exposition, had a concession stand and promoted peanut butter as a health food and this brought peanut butter out into the light. But it was not until 1922 at Rosefield Packing Company in Alameda, California that J. L. Rosefield perfected a process of making peanut butter that prevented the oil from separating and made it commercially available to the masses. He brought it out under the name Skippy and it had a much creamier texture than the peanut butter up till then that had a courser texture. After this many other companies started bringing out their own brands of peanut butter and peanut butter became one on America's staple foods. Different types of Peanut Butter Nowadays there a many different types of peanut butter. There is chunky, creamy, no-salt, no-sugar, and natural. What exactly does natural mean? You might be thinking that all peanut butter is obviously natural, and yes, it is. But the main difference between natural peanut butter and regular commercial peanut butter is that natural peanut butter is just ground peanuts(possibly with a bit of oil and/or salt added) and the peanut oils tend to separate. Recently, though, there have been some varieties of natural peanut butter that have alleviated the separation problem and there are creamy and crunchy varieties of natural peanut butter as well. The reason regular commercial peanut butters don't separate is due to stabilizers(different chemicals added to the peanut butter to keep it from separating). Making your own Peanut Butter? There is an alternative to buying commercial peanut butter, and this is to grind your own. There are many natural food stores as well as a few grocery stores that allow you to grind your own peanut butter. They way you do this is just by flicking a switch on a machine. The machine has a container on the top that holds the peanuts and feeds them into a grinder which then goes into a plastic container you take home. These pictures show one of these machines. Now you don't need one of these machines to make your own peanut butter if you local store doesn't have one. All you need is a food processor, some peanuts, maybe some oil and maybe some salt. If don't like guess work, here is recipe. 1 cup roasted, unsalted, shelled peanuts 1-1/2 to 3 tablespoons peanut or safflower oil 1/2 teaspoon salt Blend in food processor adding just enough oil to make it smooth. You can use salted peanuts and omit the salt, or omit the salt entirely with unsalted peanuts. Store in an airtight container in the refrigerator. Use within two weeks. Makes about 1-1/2 cups. Beyond Peanut Butter As much as we all love peanut butter, variety is the spice of life and it is no different when it comes to nut butters. Beyond peanut butter there is almond butter, cashew butter, sunflower butter, and many others. There is even soynut butter. This is made by roasting soy beans and then grinding them much like peanut butter. It is a low fat alternative to the high fat nut butters.