Peanut butter is one of those where the “use by” date has a ring of truth to it. My goal was to accumulate 18-24 months supply of 90-95% of my non-perishable (canned, bottled, and jarred) foods. I achieved that pretty easily.
A couple of weeks ago I opened a (plastic) jar of Skippy Peanut Butter that had a use-by date from late 2011 (a little over two years old). It was edible but like eating play-doh (even more than peanut butter is normally like eating play-doh ;’). I was able to eat it but knew that I needed to look at limiting the life-cycle to about 18 months.
“Man does not live by Peanut Butter Alone!”
That happened at my house also. It was like something happened to the oil in it.
I just opened a jar of Creamy Planters that said use by July 5th, 2012. It's fine, very creamy, and spreadable. No rancidity. It has the same ingredients as Skippy. Peanuts, Sugar, and Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils.
Canned pasta is like that, people pay attention to the dates on canned ravioli, chicken noodle soup and so on, after a few years it gets less appealing, your teen son will still eat it OK, but it does suffer in texture.
In or around 2008, when the oil prices jumped, I knew that inflation would shortly hit the groceries, and we had some extra money so I invested it in food.
The first item I stocked was peanut butter, because that is the one reliable protein that our grand daughter likes. The use by date was 18 months, so I stocked up on what I thought we would normally use in a year @ 99cents per 16 oz. jar.
The prices went up to $2.25 per jar and is now available on sale sometimes. I can get an 18 oz jar for 1.79 on sales.
We sure haven’t had to waste any - it goes pretty fast.LOL
Skippy, Jif, Superman, &c... not peanut butter, as far as I am concerned.
No need to suffer through old peanut butter. Make peanut butter cookies, pb bread, pb muffins, pb fudge, pb pie, pb ice cream, pb ice cream topping, bp cake, pb frosting, bp pancakes or use it in chinese dishes. There’s tons of ways to incorporate play-doh pb into foods. Feed it to the dog. When it’s rancid, put it into the compost pile.