I'm a fan of peanut butter. I have a jar in my hurricane supplies here in Florida.
Nonetheless, I was surprised open a recent NIST blog (*) to find out about "standard peanut butter".
Who knew? I guess there are standards for everything. (I wonder if this one is a good use of tax dollars, however)
From the blog, I learned:
" ..... packaged foods come with a list of nutritional values mandated by the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, which is enforced by the Food and Drug Administration.
You may be less aware of where those numbers come from. Well, manufacturers don’t just make them up. They have to do tests. NIST develops food and beverage-related standard reference materials (SRMs) to help them know that those tests are giving them the right answers.
NIST chemist Carolyn Burdette with SRM 2387, Peanut Butter. Credit: B. Place/NIST
When a company buys an SRM from NIST, they are really buying all of the measurements and scientific expertise that went into determining its chemical or physical properties, as well as NIST’s level of certainty regarding those measurements.
(*) National Institute of Science and Technology
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Read in the library at Square Peg Consulting about these books I've written
Buy them at any online book retailer!
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