This is nuts. According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), peanut butter is classified as a “liquid,” which means you should reconsider bringing that jar of Skippy on your next vacation.
The TSA took to Twitter this week to issue a friendly reminder, explaining that peanut butter is only allowed in your carry-on if it’s 3.4 ounces or less. “You may not be nuts about it, but TSA considers your PB a liquid,” they wrote.
“In carry-on, it needs to be 3.4oz or less. Make sure all your travel-sized liquids fit in one quart-sized bag. #PeanutButter.”
Accompanying the message was a photo of a jar of peanut butter with green text that read, “Peanut butter… a liquid has no definite shape and takes a shape dictated by its container.”
However, a TSA representative told The Post that this is not a new rule but one that has been in effect for nearly two decades.
“TSA classifies items that you can spill, spread, spray, pump, or pour as needing to be 3.4 ounces or smaller to fit into a 3-1-1 bag,” TSA spokesperson Lisa Farbstein said.
“There has been no change in the categorization of any of these items, including peanut butter, which is spreadable and thus falls under the 3.4-ounce limit.”
The TSA noted that the “categorization was established in 2006,” so “there has been no change since this rule was established.”
The rule is part of TSA’s “3-1-1” rule for flyers, where “each passenger is limited to one quart-size bag of liquids, gels, spreadables, and aerosols that must be 3.4 ounces or less (that’s 100 ml, which is the international standard),” the representative explained.
Also included on the TSA’s list of carry-on no-nos are creamy dips and spreads, hummus, jam, and jelly. All of these are classified as liquids and have the same requirements as peanut butter.
However, it appears Twitter users are not pleased with this rule and have started “spreading” the news to anyone who will listen.
“The percentage of water our bodies carry may as well be banned too,” one user wrote in response to the agency’s tweet.
Another agreed, typing, “Thank you for keeping us safe from peanut butter. Not all heroes wear capes.” “Sand and sugar would like a word about this definition of a liquid,” someone else joked.
However, it looks like the TSA could be onto something here.
Last December, a man from Rhode Island was arrested at JFK airport in New York after he tried to smuggle a disassembled gun inside a jar of Jif peanut butter.
The TSA told The Post that officials had found parts of the .22 caliber semi-automatic gun wrapped in plastic and stuffed inside two jars of peanut butter. They found it in his checked baggage.
“The gun parts were artfully concealed in two smooth creamy jars of peanut butter, but there was certainly nothing smooth about the way the man went about trying to smuggle his gun,” John Essig, TSA’s Federal Security Director for JFK Airport, said in a statement at the time.
