How many peanuts are in a Snickers bar?

October 2, 2008 4:05 PM

So how many actual peanuts are there in a Snickers bar?

We're having a bit of a disagreement here about how many actual peanuts are in a King Size Snickers candy bar.

Definition of a peanut: the contents of one whole shelled peanut, both halves.

Size of a King Size Snickers bar: 2.07 oz.

I found one site that said there are 27-28. In other words, 54-56 peanut halves, or if they're cut in half, which I believe they are, over 100 peanut fourths! Sounds like a stretch to me, considering there is merely a layer of peanuts.

posted by caroljean63 to food & drink (12 comments total)

King size snickers bars are 3.7 ounces.
posted by wongcorgi at 4:18 PM on October 2, 2008

The easiest way to get an accurate answer would be to melt one and count them.
posted by fire&wings at 4:24 PM on October 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Run one under the faucet. Everything else will fall away.
posted by lubujackson at 4:40 PM on October 2, 2008

I'm confused. "One whole shelled peanut" varies.

Fig 1:

    ____   /____\,   \____/

Is figure 1 what you call one peanut? It clearly has two halves.. But...


Fig 2:

2.1:  ___ (###)  1x fig A. 2.2:  __ __ (#####)  2x fig A.2.3:  __ __ __ (########)  3x fig A

Are all the peanuts in figure B each one peanut? 2.2 seems the most common, but that contains four peanut halves.


Anyway, however they're reckoning it, it seems there's 40-60 peanuts per ounce So if that's true, a Snickers bar would be about 20% peanuts by weight. That doesn't seem totally outlandish.
posted by aubilenon at 4:45 PM on October 2, 2008 [2 favorites]

20% by weight IF it had 27 peanuts, I mean.
posted by aubilenon at 4:46 PM on October 2, 2008

Are you thinking that someone's shelling whole peanuts and putting them in snickers bars?
Much more likely that a truck marked " grade B peanut pieces" is backed up to the factory and dumped in the vats.
The only way to get your answer is above - melt a few snickerses (snickerii?) and count the nut parts and add them up to get X whole peanuts - but I don't think you'll be reassembling any whole peanuts cruelly torn asunder by the M&M Mars company - you'll be picking up chunks and saying "Hm, that one's about 1/8 of a peanut - so that makes 27 halves, 13 quarters, 23 eighths, and about 4 nuts worth of smaller bits. Fred, what have you got in yours?" There's no way I would be able to do this without eating my data sample set.

And why the gigantic King Size bar, as opposed to the regular size, if I might ask?
posted by bartleby at 4:55 PM on October 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Got a mini one here....lets see...6 havles some large crumbs and some little chunks....
posted by bjgeiger at 5:08 PM on October 2, 2008

[a few comments removed, please save lulz for church, thanks.]
posted by jessamyn at 5:23 PM on October 2, 2008

What you need to do is isolate the peanut bits using the advice above, weigh those peanut bits, and then find out how many whole shelled peanuts weigh the same. That's how many whole peanuts are in a Snickers.
posted by mendel at 7:04 PM on October 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Put bar in strainer, run hot water over, count. If I had one here, I wouldn't do that. I'd eat it. If I had 2 here, I'd do that to one, eat the other, and then let you know.
posted by mumstheword at 10:32 PM on October 2, 2008 [1 favorite]

Get Rob to count for you.
posted by attercoppe at 12:26 PM on October 3, 2008

I just saw an Unwrapped episode ("Halloween Sweets") that included a segment on Snickers. The spokesperson -- whose name I unfortunately didn't catch -- said that each standard Snickers bar includes about 28 peanuts.

I realize this is only about as helpful as your original link, but now at least you have a citation to track down that claim. Good luck!
posted by booksandlibretti at 5:44 PM on October 18, 2008