refrigerate peanut butter?

I don't,sometime the oil comes to the top of the natural stuff but i just mix it in again.my dh used to and i told him that i was fed up of eating sandwiches with holes!! :LOL

we do but its because its what my mom has always done. i take it out of the jar, give it a good stir, pour it back in, then refridgerate it. my mom says it slows the separation. HTH!

I have heard it can go ranci and certain bacterias can grow in it. It is also easier to spread if it is the 100% natural peanut butter because the oil stays mixed in.

If you don't refrigerate it, there's a good chance that it will (just peanuts, not other nut butters) grow Aspergillus bacteria in it. DH (the ex-hazardous chemical chemist) said that it's amazing how many people get sick every year just because they didn't refrigerate their peanut butter.

So do it! And then you don't have to remix the oils either!

p.s. Aspergillus is a fungi that excretes aflatoxins - a highly carcinogenic toxic metabolite.

"The abilitiy of aflatoxins to cause cancer and related diseases in humans given their seemingly unavoidable occurrence in foods and feeds make the prevention and detoxification of these mycotoxins one of the most challenging toxicology issues of present time."

http://www.ansci.cornell.edu/plants/...tml#Monitoring

We buy the 100% peanuts peanut butter. When I open a new jar, I dump the whole thing into the food processor and add a little flax seed oil and process it for a few seconds, then pour it back into the jar. That way the oil is evenly distributed, the extra bit of flax oil makes it soft enough to spread easily right out of the fridge, and my kids get the benefit of a little extra flax oil in their diet. It takes about 5 minutes, beginnnng to end, but I feel it is worth it.

Yeah, most people I tell to refrigerate the PB have that same attitude. So have all the people who've gotten sick. It seems like a really simple thing you can do that guarantees that you won't get sick. But to each his/her own!

We don't refrigerate. My mom did, but only because we grew up in hot, hot, hot Florida, where EVERYTHING goes bad if it isn't refrigerated! We also hardly ate PB as kids. My DH and DC and I eat PB alot, so don't need the refrigeration.

I've never heard of this PB poisoning, either. I think since our society is SO over-paranoid about stupid stuff, they'd put a label on it to say to keep refrigerated if it was such a problem. Like West Nile, Chicken Pox, etc. People have heard of like 1 person who died or got in the hospital, and so they try to make everyone scared of it. or... maybe it's some kind of government conspiracy!! hmm...

Angelamom~ you're right about the oil not separating in the fridge, but it's easy enough to just mix back in (we buy the 5 lb. tubs, so I should know! :LOL). If you keep it in the fridge, it is also thicker, and harder to spread.

I always refrigerate pb, b/c it can go rancid (my dad drilled this into my head!). However, I think some of it has to do with how fast you use it. I'm the only pb eater in my house, so it can take me a few months to get through a jar. If your family is going through a jar in a week or two, I think the odds of it going bad are much lower.

I don't have any data to back this up--it just seems to make sense.

I edited my original post to add more information about what actually makes you sick from non-refrigerated PB. Please read the article for more information. It's not like everyone's dropping dead like flies but it's a huge agricultural problem when it grows in feed and similar problems happen with people - they just don't eat as much of it as stock animals do. But who wants to add any carcinogens to their diet when they don't need to!

Thanks for all your replies, but I am still not sure which way we're going to go. I am tending toward the not refrigerating side, because we are likly to eat this pb is less than a couple of weeks. I know it won't go rancid in this household, but I was worried about other bacteria.

PikkuMyy, is Aspergillus a problem in raw peanuts as well?

We keep our natural PB in the fridge so I don't have to mix the oil in every time. I have no problem spreading the cold PB on the multi-grain bread we buy.

I do too. I buy 5 pound buckets of it through the co-op and I think it would be rancid before we could use all of it.

Thanks Shantimama, for the flax oil tip! I never would have thought of that.

We don't refridgerate ours (we use all natural) because we go through it in less than 2 weeks.

I do refridgerate tahini because I don't use it as regularly.

I stopped refrigerating natural peanut butter because it was soo much easier to spread and it tastes better to me when it's not cold (more flavor). We go through a jar in less than 2 weeks, so I'm not concerned. I don't know anyone who refrigerates processed peanut butter, or anyone who's gotten sick from it.

Well, thanks for the info on refrigeration; I guess I will start refrigerating mine. It's just peanuts, huh, so almond butter and tahini can stay in the pantry?
Anyway, I wanted to add about the oil seperation, what I do is store my nut butters in the pantry upside down, and so the oil rises to the bottom and when I turn it right side the oil is not on top. Works great! Just make sure the cap is screwed on tight!