The peanut butter verdict

The Uncertain Hour

Marketplace

Government, News

4.8 • 2.2K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2017

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

For the past two episodes, we’ve been telling you the birth story of a single regulation, one of the most misunderstood, and yet pivotal, regulations in American history: The number of peanuts that should be in peanut butter. Today, that story comes to an end.

We’re picking up the action in 1965. It’s been more than six years since the Food and Drug Administration discovered a bunch of big peanut butter brands were using fewer peanuts and more artificial additives. Those heavyweights went back and forth with the government, and consumer activists like Ruth Desmond made their voices heard. It all lead up to the surreal moment when peanut butter was put on trial.

There’s more to come in season two of The Uncertain Hour, where the things we fight the most about are the things we know the least about. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or your favorite podcast app.

Transcript

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0:00.0	As heard previously, on the uncertain hour,
0:03.3	when does it stop being peanut butter?
0:06.0	95% peanuts.
0:08.7	None of those big brands of peanut butter
0:10.9	would even be able to be called peanut butter.
0:13.0	In this corner, Skippy, and in this corner, Jim.
0:17.5	Crisco, Crisco base.
0:19.1	And Jeff says, OK, that didn't work for us
0:21.2	because we have to say, you know,
0:23.2	cottonseed oil, rape seed oil, horrifying.
0:25.5	Can you imagine that these scoundrels
0:28.9	are trying to pass this cold cream off his peanut butter?
0:33.6	And in this corner, Ruth Desmond
0:35.9	and the Federation and Homemaker.
0:37.8	We would like the protection of the regulatory agency
0:40.7	in our interests.
0:49.0	And now we come to the final chapter
0:52.1	in our peanut butter trilogy.
0:53.8	Return of the peanut butter grandma Jedi.
0:57.6	Welcome back to the uncertain hour,
1:00.2	where the things we fight the most about
1:02.4	are the things we know the least about.
	...

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