This is nuts.
According to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), peanut butter is classified as a “liquid” — which means that you better re-think bringing that jar of Skippy on your next vacation.
The TSA took to Twitter this week to make the friendly reminder, explaining that you can only bring it in your carry-on if it’s 3.4oz 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.”
Accompanied by the message was a photo of a jar of peanut butter, and green text that read, “Peanut butter… a liquid has no definite shape and takes a shape dictated by its container.”
However, a TSA rep told The Post that it’s not a new rule but rather 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 a spreadable and thus falls under the 3.4-ounce limit.”
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 fliers, in which “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 rep explained.
Also included on the TSA’s list of carry-on no-no’s are creamy dips and spreads, hummus, and jam and jelly. All of those are classified as liquids that also have the same requirements as peanut butter.
However, it looks like Twitter users aren’t too pleased about 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 had tried to smuggle a dissassembled 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 the 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.
