This Sugary Peanut Butter Spread Was A Snack Staple Of The '70s

While there are plenty of wild and wacky snacks in existence today, there's just nothing that compares to the nonsensical designs of the '70s, '80s, and '90s. How could anything be better than sinking your teeth into a Nik-L-Nip wax bottle candy (yes, it's safe to eat wax candy) or the out-of-this-world crunch of Space Food Sticks? If you grew up in the '70s, or you're a fan of other vintage snacks that no one remembers, you might recall jars of Koogle peanut spread.

Koogle peanut spread was a small 12-ounce jar of peanut spread aimed at children. It was manufactured by Kraft (the same Kraft responsible for extra cheesy mac and cheese character shapes) and was introduced in 1971 with four flavors: Chocolate, vanilla, banana, and cinnamon. If you're thinking that these sound like strange flavor choices for peanut butter, you're right. Many people compare Koogle more to a spreadable condiment like Nutella than an actual jar of peanut butter — something much smoother and easier to spread on sandwich bread than its sometimes-crunchy counterpart. The jars used to sell for just 69 cents, but it didn't take long for American households to pick up on the wild amounts of sugar and minimal amounts of real peanuts in each container.

At the time, the American diet was rapidly changing. Parents wanted easy, convenient snacks and meals for their kids (just think about the pre-cooked simplicity of TV dinners), so to stay alive, brands like Kraft hopped on board with new inventions. Koogle was advertised as a "creamy, smooth" spread perfect for "bread, crackers, or almost anything" according to an old commercial. Perfect for throwing in your child's lunch box with an apple or banana and calling it a day. There was even a mascot, the Koogle Nut, who appeared on TV commercials and paper advertisements encouraging kids to try the product so "near and dear" to his heart.

Koogle was a fairly popular snack among children, but it was pulled from shelves by the late 1970s. There was no official explanation, but the most likely culprit was that parents realized how unhealthy it was and stopped purchasing it. Information was released in 1975 by a third party — "Consumer Reports" — who discovered that Koogles didn't contain the FDA's required number of peanuts to be classified as peanut butter and was significantly nutritionally inferior to plain old peanut butter. Plenty of former '70s kids remember Koogle fondly, however, recalling on Reddit how delicious it was, although others vividly remember how much they hated it.