These 5 things you didn't know about peanut butter

Say wine, snacks or haute cuisine and the gourmands at online food magazine FavorFlav know where to drink, how to eat it and what to cook. This time our cheffies serve you: these 5 things you didn't know about peanut butter.

Every weekday morning, one of us stands there again, still half asleep, spreading peanut butter and jam on the sandwich for the lunchbox on autopilot. I mean, fine and tasty, peanut butter, but every day the same? Yep. Are you also such a peanut butter fanatic? Curious if you already knew the facts below.

Because besides that we like it in all kinds of ways (it's already September, supermarkets, bring on that gingerbread peanut butter) and we also like to incorporate it into an Asian sauce or in a toasted faux chicken satay, we are of course fond of fun facts about peanut butter. Did you know, for example, that:

Peanut butter was invented for people without teeth?
No joke! Peanut butter has of course a lot of nutritional value, and inventor Dr. John Harvey Kellogg had the health of patients in mind who needed to get enough vitamins and proteins without being able to chew. That's why he came up with the idea in 1895 to grind peanuts for them.

About 550 peanuts are needed for a jar of 350 grams?
So if you're wondering: why so many calories, just picture how many peanuts that is, spread out in front of you on a carpet. But don't worry: mainly healthy fats, right! Especially if you skip the variants with palm oil (and there are many) and go for ‘pure’ peanut butter. Like Mister Kitchens Peanut Butter super crunchy without palm oil.

It costs almost 20 liters of water to shell about 30 grams of peanuts?
Not the best news either. And yes, that sounds like a lot, but it's still less than what is needed to shell 30 grams of almonds (namely 290 liters) or 30 grams of walnuts (270 liters). Just sayin’.

Europeans eat much less peanut butter than Americans?
But it must be said: in the Netherlands, the number of peanut butter lovers is growing. Just like in the United Kingdom and Germany, but in the rest of Europe, the stuff is much less popular. America is not happy about that, because the country has a huge number of peanut farmers who naturally want to see their market expand. Come on guys, one more peanut butter sandwich with pickle: we can do it.

You can make diamonds from peanut butter?
Whaaattt?! Yes, not just at home in your shed or something, with your nephew's chemistry toy set. Scientists in Germany have managed to subject certain materials in a lab to pressure and heat in such a way that at the end of the process, after removing oxygen, a little diamond was left. Amazing! You know what, let's just start calmly with making peanut butter in the first place, because you can easily do that at home!