[HN Gopher] Going Nuts over NIST's Standard Reference Peanut But...
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Going Nuts over NIST's Standard Reference Peanut Butter (2016)
Author : rbanffy
Score : 107 points
Date : 2025-01-24 17:38 UTC (4 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.nist.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.nist.gov)
| LorenDB wrote:
| (2016)
| i_v wrote:
| NileRed has a humorous YouTube video where he bakes cookies using
| only NIST reference ingredients. It costs something like $2000 to
| bake a single cookie and has all the flavor of cardboard.
| ZYbCRq22HbJ2y7 wrote:
| NileBlue*
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crjxpZHv7Hk
| skyyler wrote:
| NileBlue is his second channel. I don't think it's incorrect
| to call him by his main channel's name.
| bagels wrote:
| NileGreen*
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAU0FX1d044
| markild wrote:
| I really love the channel, but I can't help to feel that he was
| held back by his, ehm, limited knowledge of cooking.
| calmbonsai wrote:
| Perhaps he was simply "playing it up" for the camera, but I
| thought it was hilarious how worried he was about his cookie
| cracking.
| hatthew wrote:
| Yeah, I would have liked to see a "control cookie" with
| normal ingredients. I suspect it wouldn't have been much
| better.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Unfortunately he had no idea how to bake, let alone bake
| cookies, and his recipe made no sense at all. It was kind of a
| waste of money.
| sumtechguy wrote:
| Yeah his recipe was very odd. That sort of cooking is very
| fiddly. I rubbished a whole batch of cookies a few weeks ago
| just by cooking them ~2 mins too long. Sweats seem to be very
| exacting one what you need to do to make them come out
| correctly. Other kinds of cooking you can +/- a lot of things
| and still get something good. Sweats on the other hand. You
| better get it 'just right'.
| nkrisc wrote:
| Cooking is art, baking is science.
| vel0city wrote:
| Can confirm. Baking by mass, cooking by eyeballing
| amounts into the pan and constant tasting.
|
| About the only time my cooking is science is candy. Every
| degree matters, percentage matters so much, etc. A few
| degrees means crystals are radically different.
| p1necone wrote:
| Imo both cooking and baking are "science" until you have
| the requisite experience to mess around, then they both
| become art. You can absolutely guess your way into a
| great cake recipe based on feel.
|
| I think the two important differences are that the
| results of bad cooking tend to be slightly more edible
| than the results of bad baking, so many people don't even
| realize they can't cook. And many more people are forced
| into cooking via necessity, so the average skill level is
| higher.
| bena wrote:
| Having a temperature preference for steak is just that,
| preference. Saltiness is a preference. As is most things
| in cooking.
|
| Raw dough is always raw dough. You can't fake rising,
| etc.
|
| Not to mention, if you watch cooking/baking shows, you'll
| see just how much overlap there really is. Some
| challenges in Masterchef involves baked goods, cakes,
| macaroons, etc. Some challenges in the Great British
| Baking Show involves cooking things. Either to make
| savory pies or to make compotes or jams, etc.
| bruce511 wrote:
| I'll back you up here. While i don't do a lot of baking,
| I've done enough over my life to get a feel for what the
| ingredients do. I adjust enough that I think most folks
| would describe it as "not following the recipe".
|
| I will often reduce sugar, add things (cocoa, nuts and so
| on). As an example if you add cocoa you need to add fluid
| to compensate. More butter (or oil) leads to a "wetter"
| crumb and so on.
|
| It takes more experience than regular cooking to do this
| though, and th feedback cycle is slower.
| nkrisc wrote:
| It's certainly true that there is plenty of science in
| cooking and plenty of art in baking. My comment is very
| reductive.
|
| That said, cooking is generally far more forgiving that
| baking. If you put some amount of chicken in an oven set
| to a temperature of "very hot", you'll eventually have
| cooked chicken.
|
| If you mix some amount of flour, water, and yeast, let it
| sit for some amount of time, and then put it in a "very
| hot" oven, you're unlikely to end up with what anyone
| would call "bread". It may not even really be that edible
| unless you were to grind it back into a power and mix it
| with water.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > It was kind of a waste of money.
|
| Isn't that the entire point of everything done? Crazy wild
| ass things nobody in their right mind would try, but getting
| to watch someone else do it drives those views.
| TheRealPomax wrote:
| Usually the expectation is that this someone knows what
| they're doing, and it was weird how in this particular
| video that just didn't apply, at all. It was like watching
| him do chemistry video without having any idea what amounts
| of base chemicals to use or what steps to follow and just
| making it up in order to conclude "this doesn't work, the
| base chemicals are clearly bad" at the end of it =)
| buildsjets wrote:
| If you are baking cookies using standard reference ingredients,
| you had best be using a standard reference recipe.
|
| https://www.dla.mil/Portals/104/Documents/TroopSupport/Subsi...
|
| If you please, I request Type III, Style D, shape (d). Low-fat
| sugar cookies in patriotic shapes, including but not limited to
| Uncle Sam, Bald Eagle, Torch of Liberty, Letters "USA",
| American Flag, Statue of Liberty, etc.
| emchammer wrote:
| I'll settle for an ANSI standard pizza and an ISO standard
| cup of tea.
| UncleMeat wrote:
| He makes a big deal of the cookie being pure, like the
| ingredients he is using are superior to ordinary ingredients.
| But they aren't. They are reference ingredients, merely
| intended to be _precise_ rather than pure. You can buy human
| waste from NIST too.
|
| The reference flour is like a decade old. Not exactly optimal
| for actual baking.
| workmandan wrote:
| Dharma Initiative Peanut Butter
| ycombiredd wrote:
| Relevant SRM #2387 use case
| https://github.com/scottvr/PBVD?tab=readme-ov-file#future-ex...
|
| The PB is ~1/3 of the entire materials cost. ;-)
|
| From the BOM:
|
| ... NIST Standard Peanut Butter 1 jar $150 $150
| Laser Safety Goggles 1 pair $25 $25 Total Estimated Cost -
| - $520
| JimDabell wrote:
| Along similar lines, the British Standards Institution has
| defined BS 6008:1980, which is the standard reference cup of tea.
| ISO has adopted this as ISO 3103.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ISO_3103
|
| Along with it being Peanut Butter Day, it is also Tea Day! This
| is not as much of a coincidence as it might first appear though,
| since every day is Tea Day.
| automatic6131 wrote:
| Wait wait wait, milk in before the tea? That's not right.
| Aloha wrote:
| It can be either!
|
| * If the test involves milk, then it is added to the bowl
| before pouring the infused tea into it, unless that is
| contrary to the organisation's normal practice.
|
| * If milk is added after the pouring of tea, the standard
| notes that best results are obtained when the liquid is
| between 65 and 80 degC
|
| My _organization_ tends to prefer milk after, But I 'm a
| silly yank who has lots of wrong opinions on a great deal of
| things (or so I've been told).
| genewitch wrote:
| As an American I think it depends on how the tea is made. I
| have a kettle, but I steep in a tea cup rather than another
| dish to wash. So by standards of decorum I put milk after
| the tea bags are removed.
|
| I put cream at the bottom of coffee cups before the machine
| puts coffee in about half the time, though. I have a lot of
| family in Britain.
| s0rce wrote:
| Milk before tea reduces thermal shock on fragile fine china
| tea cups
| numpad0 wrote:
| Regurgitating web crawl dataset: it's not the best way to
| brew any tea, just a standardized method used for
| evaluation/quality control purposes. It helps supply chain
| workers to notice molds early and to price tea leafs.
| munchler wrote:
| > Food manufacturers use the SRMs to calibrate their test methods
| and equipment.
|
| So we trust them to self-report their nutrition labels, rather
| than having an unbiased lab perform the test? That seems
| problematic.
| repeekad wrote:
| If they lie then it's a lawsuit, and the tax dollars and waste
| that would go into a centralized solution like you want would
| be eye watering
| dooglius wrote:
| How is there going to be a lawsuit if there is no independent
| test?
| calmbonsai wrote:
| If there's sufficient backing and motivation due to
| say...another impeding lawsuit, there most definitely will
| be, not just one, but a handful of "independent tests" each
| backed by the plaintiff and the defendant.
| TimTheTinker wrote:
| Relying on potential lawsuits alone to ensure compliance with
| complex requirements is irresponsible.
|
| That's like saying that the customers and shareholders of a
| given company are sufficient because they can sue, and
| therefore financial audits of the company are unnecessary.
|
| The solution doesn't have to be a heavyweight centralized
| agency, either. Simply requiring periodic tests by an
| independent, licensed third party (just like financial
| auditors) should be sufficient.
| cogman10 wrote:
| We do this for meet and it's done wonders for the quality
| of products that fall under the USDA.
|
| The FDA is technically in charge of the doing these
| inspections for stuff that doesn't fall under the USDA, but
| they are fully captured doing the D in FDA and not the F.
|
| It'd make sense to move that responsibility out of the FDA
| and into the USDA to form a new food focused agency. It'd
| also make sense to regulate supplements, but there's a lot
| of monied interests that don't want more/better oversight
| so good luck seeing that happen.
|
| At a minimum, consumers should be reasonably confident that
| what's on the label is in the package. That's not really
| true for supplements.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > We do this for meet and it's done wonders for the
| quality of products that fall under the USDA.
|
| Sometimes typos are just fun. Could you imagine if
| everyone of your meetings had to follow strict FDA
| guidelines? Not sure if that would improve or worsen the
| typical meeting experience. Maybe a chart on the meeting
| invite like calories/sugars/etc that would indicate the
| type of meeting. If the sugars are too high, it will be
| one of those meetings where everything is super positive
| and sickening to sit through. A high protein value could
| indicate there will be actual useful information in the
| meeting.
| coldpie wrote:
| There's lots of competition in food manufacturing. Your
| competitors would likely suggest an investigation if your
| company started selling something like 10cal/Tb butter. If
| your swindling falls under the threshold of notice, then
| honestly you're probably within the fairly generous
| acceptable error bars anyway.
| sparky_z wrote:
| I don't know the answer, but this doesn't seem to tell us one
| way or the other. Even if there is independent lab testing for
| the final certification, it would be crazy for the company to
| not perform their own testing many many more times during the
| R&D process.
|
| I have a friend who does mass spectroscopy testing to measure
| volatile chemical emissions from consumer goods. They don't do
| final certification testing for the relevant government agency,
| but they are contracted by the companies themselves to provide
| continuous testing services as the products are being developed
| and manufacturing processes are being dialed in. Once they have
| a finished product, it's sent to a government lab (or
| independent contractor, I'm not sure) for final certification.
| advisedwang wrote:
| Yeah basically. There's pretty wide margins allowed on the
| accuracy too AND in practice major mistakes in labeling happen.
| But unlike allergens, even quite significant errors usually
| don't result in serious consequences, so the cost, development
| delays and other side effects of really strong enforcement
| aren't really that worthwhile.
| bombcar wrote:
| Wait until you read up how the FAA certifies planes!
| beowulfey wrote:
| There are audits, and lying can result in fines. But yes, as
| with most regulations businesses are expected to follow them
| but they can _not_ follow them at the risk of repercussions.
| 0xC0ncord wrote:
| Veritasium has a great video[1] on NIST's Standard Reference
| Materials including their peanut butter. It talks about some of
| the other aspects of NIST's business in selling these items,
| their history, why they exist, and some of the other interesting
| ones like their standard reference cigarettes.
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=esQyYGezS7c
| buildsjets wrote:
| There's also NIST 1196a, "Standard Cigarette". As a friend said,
| I bet they taste like drywall and taxes.
|
| https://www.nist.gov/image/cigarettes-lab
|
| https://www.nist.gov/fire/history/standard-reference-cigaret...
| TheJoeMan wrote:
| There's many mandatory flammability tests for upholstery in the
| US related to cigarette ignition and spread. I wonder what
| would happen if cigarettes were fully banned, would we keep the
| test method?
| bell-cot wrote:
| [Cuba Libre Cigar Co. stands by, ready to assist]
| parsimo2010 wrote:
| I imagine that the tests wouldn't go away completely, they
| might just be modified to make sure that a faulty Juul or
| other vape box doesn't cause them to burn. But probably
| nothing would change for several years, because just because
| you outlaw cigarettes that doesn't mean people are going to
| quit overnight.
|
| And then if you outlawed vapes then I'm sure there's still
| some other fire hazard to worry about and they would modify
| the tests again.
| potato3732842 wrote:
| Hopefully they're rolled back to sane levels. Clothing
| flammability tests/requirements were more or less an
| overkill response to a moral panic in the 1970s when the
| media took and ran with some questionable stories about
| flammable kids clothing and whatnot. Furniture and drapery
| are/were of legitimate concern but as we all know it's
| never just the tip.
| daveguy wrote:
| If you'd like to learn about the actual origin of
| flammable clothing restrictions and the difference the
| regulations made, here is a good summary:
|
| https://www.parent.com/blogs/conversations/2023-why-are-
| we-a...
| potato3732842 wrote:
| I didn't know the moral panic went so far back. I'm only
| familiar with it starting in the 70s (at the time it was
| very much a 2nd tier moral panic riding the coatails of
| the hazards of smoking). While nobody wants more crispy
| children what that article isn't telling you is that
| there are a lot of fabric flame retardants are safe in
| that they haven't been proven unsafe. Fine for your
| couch, curtains, etc. But stuff you're gonna wear every
| day, IDK man. Not sure I want literally everyone to have
| level of exposure to chemicals for their entire life.
| daveguy wrote:
| Did you even read it?
|
| Here you go, buddy:
|
| > [Referring to a Gene Autry costume that had over 100
| lawsuits over the burn victims] The cowboy suit and other
| similar incidents were the impetus for the 1953 passage
| of the Flammable Fabrics Act, which regulated, among
| other things, which fabrics could be used for clothing.
| No more rayon pile chaps for kids (or brushed rayon
| sweaters for women), as such items had become famous for
| creating what were widely reported at the time as "human
| torches."
| potato3732842 wrote:
| >Did you even read it?
|
| >Here you go, buddy:
|
| If I didn't read it why would I say something like "I
| didn't know the moral panic went so far back"?. Like I
| said, I'm familiar with the actual standards for
| flammability that didn't come about until the early 1970s
| and resulted in the textile industry adding flame
| retardants to everything. I have no idea what they were
| legislating in the 1950s but it wasn't the whole
| industry. Regardless, the point which you seem to be
| missing is that it's not clear how good for everybody it
| is to be living their whole lives in and around clothes
| and textiles that are treated with flame retardant
| chemicals that are safe in the same way that pesticides
| and sketchy plastics are safe.
|
| Edit: I was right, turns out the 1953 law is basically
| "don't sell anything that's more flammable than typical"
| https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/16/1609.1
| daveguy wrote:
| Flame retardant treatment requirement for cotton was
| discontinued in 1996.
|
| Sorry, it's clear we are talking past each other. You
| have a great week.
| skyyler wrote:
| >"I know it sounds ghoulish, but the staff of the burn
| unit in my hospital practically danced around the beds of
| the three children who were admitted in the past year
| with burns incurred when their pajamas ignited. The
| reason was that they were wearing garments that had been
| treated with a flame-retardant chemical. The burns,
| therefore, were trivial. The children were quickly
| treated and sent home. A few short years ago, before
| flame-resistant sleepwear was on the market, these same
| children would either have been dead or sentenced to a
| life of pain and disfigurement."
|
| Your use of the phrase "moral panic" in this context is
| ironically in support of a moral panic about the dangers
| of fabric flame retardants.
| spinach wrote:
| Do other countries also use NIST's products as standards, or do
| other countries have their own standards/NIST?
| kergonath wrote:
| Both :) Some countries have their own standard bodies [1], but
| I would not be surprised if some smaller countries just used
| NIST standards. And even countries with their own standards use
| some of NIST or ANSI indirectly when they become ISO standards.
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standards_organization
| sambaumann wrote:
| (2016) - the NIST Peanut Butter now costs $1,217
| (https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductDetails?sku=2387&cclcl=en...)
| NaOH wrote:
| Related:
|
| _NIST Standard Peanut Butter - $1,107_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38016900 - Oct 2023 (35
| comments)
|
| _NIST Standard Reference Materials Catalog [pdf]_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41917035 - Oct 2024 (9
| comments)
| kazinator wrote:
| The saddest thing about this isn't the waste of resources on this
| nonsense, but that the reference stuff is not actually peanut
| butter. It's some Kraft-like paste that contains hydrogenated
| vegetable oil and whatnot. You can tell even from the photo that
| it's not just peanuts.
|
| Instead of concocting reference garbage, maybe your government
| should just ban anything that is not just ground peanuts from
| being called "peanut butter".
| ethbr1 wrote:
| Would you be interested in a job at the United States
| Department of Health and Human Services?
|
| You've got exactly the kind of attitude we're looking for!
| NaOH wrote:
| Here are the US Government regulations of what is necessary for
| products to be labeled as "Peanut Butter":
|
| https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-21/chapter-I/subchapter-B...
| kazinator wrote:
| I appreciate you digging this up; thank you.
| yellowapple wrote:
| I know inflation's gotten bad and all but it seems a bit crazy
| that the typical diet is $901:
| https://shop.nist.gov/ccrz__ProductDetails?sku=1548b&cclcl=e...
| Rant423 wrote:
| Mandatory Tom Scott videos:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jvJzi0BXcGI
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAsrsMPftOI
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