National Peanut Butter Day 2018: 10 Fun Facts To Celebrate The Holiday

It's National Peanut Butter Day, and we celebrate this delicious sticky spread because of how much it has become a staple in most American diets over the years.

Though the earliest known peanut butter can be traced back to the Aztecs and Incas around 1000 B.C., it wasn't until much later that the form we know it in today came to be. These days, it can also be used in a variety of different ways, as a lunchtime staple, a delicious dessert, or even a healthier snack, but there are still some surprising things you may not know about peanut butter after all. So to celebrate this quasi-holiday, take a look at these 10 fun facts below, compliments of the National Peanut Board, The Stir, and the Mother Nature Network.

1. With all of the debate over whether creamy or chunky peanut butter is better, studies have been conducted to figure out the answer. As it turns out, men prefer chunky peanut butter, while women and children prefer creamy. In addition, where you're from may also indicate your preference. People who live on the East Coast of the US prefer creamy, while chunky wins out on the West Coast.
2. A single 12 oz. Jar of peanut butter requires about 540 peanuts to be made. In order to make 30,000 peanut butter sandwiches, you would also need an entire acre of peanuts.
3. Anywhere between 75 and 90 percent of American homes have a jar of peanut butter in them.
4. Most peanut butters are vegan and gluten-free. Considering that any product labeled as peanut butter must legally contain 90 percent peanuts in the ingredients, that's not actually all that surprising.
5. Before they graduate high school, the average kid eats 1,500 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
6. If you took all of the peanut butter Americans typically eat in a year, you would have enough to coat the floor of the entire Grand Canyon.

   

7. You're not the only one who probably thinks Do-si-dos and Tagalongs are the best Girl Scout Cookies. But did you know that in order to keep up with the demand, cookie bakers use about 230,000 pounds of peanut butter per week to bake them?
8. Peanuts in general are so popular, that there are six cities in the United States that are actually named Peanut, with three alone in Pennsylvania: Peanut, California; Lower Peanut, Pennsylvania; Upper Peanut, Pennsylvania; Peanut, Pennsylvania; Peanut, Tennesse; and Peanut, West Virginia.
9. People who suffer from Arachibutyrophobia are definitely not going to try saying that with a mouth full of peanut butter, because it means they're actually afraid of getting peanut butter stuck to the roof of their mouths.
10. Surprise! As it turns out, peanuts aren't actually nuts, but legumes. So referring to it as a nut butter (the way you would for almond butter and other kinds of the like), is actually inaccurate.