peanut butter

We may have heard lots of people with lots of intriguing phobias, but seldom would we know that there are persons who are phobic of peanut butter.  If you haven’t figured it out by now, arachibutyrophobia is the fear of peanut butter sticking to the roof of your mouth.

So what makes peanut butter so sticky? One source says that peanut butter’s high-protein content pulls the moisture out of you mouth. That’s why a peanut butter sandwich sticks to the roof of your mouth.

That may be true, but a dry turkey sandwich sticks to the roof of your mouth just as bad as a peanut butter sandwich does. A plain cheese sandwich is even worse since there is nothing to provide lubrication. Another theory about sandwiches sticking to the roof of your mouth has to do with squeezing the air out from between the food and the roof of your mouth, sort of like the vacuum caused by a wetted rubber plug. If this is true, bread, which contains lots of small air cells, would be particularly bad, but peanut butter by itself wouldn’t be likely to cause sticking.

No matter what causes a peanut butter sandwich to stick, the good thing is that we can add all sorts of things to prevent sticking. With so many different things to complement peanut butter, from grape jelly to bananas, there’s no need to fear the peanut butter sandwich. One sandwich, attributed to Hubert Humphrey, has peanut butter, bologna, Cheddar cheese, lettuce, and mayonnaise on toasted bread with catsup on the side.

So what’s your favorite peanut butter sandwich combination?

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