The Transportation Security Administration thought it had settled a dispute over peanut butter some time ago: unless it is 3.4 fluid ounces or less, it has to be checked.
However, the question of what the T.S.A. considers a liquid continues to confuse passengers. It bubbled up again last week when a writer and podcaster tried to board a flight out of Pittsburgh with a jar of Jif natural peanut butter.
Patrick Neve, who said he was on the way to a speaking engagement, wrote about surrendering his peanut butter in a tweet that had received 10.4 million views by Monday, according to Twitter.
“I tried to take peanut butter through airport security,” he wrote. “T.S.A.: ‘Sorry, no liquids, gels, or aerosols.’ Me: ‘I want you to tell me which of those things you think peanut butter is,’” he continued, lightheartedly summarizing his conundrum.
He asked; T.S.A. answered.
The administration, which takes a decidedly lighter tone online than its officers do at airport security lines — with a bio promising “travel tips and dad joke hits” — responded with a reiteration of its peanut-butter rule, and a bad pun.
“You may not be nuts about it,” the administration’s social media team posted on Instagram, “but T.S.A. considers your PB a liquid. In carry-on, it needs to be 3.4 oz. or less.”
Mr. Neve’s experience with T.S.A inspired travelers to share their own tales of loss to the exacting standards of a T.S.A. security line, many of them with more than a hint of snark.
“So apparently my peanut butter wasn’t allowed past security but the 22-gauge IV insertion kits that were somehow at the bottom of my carry-on bag passed with flying colors,” Blimi Marcus, a registered nurse, wrote on Twitter.
The T.S.A.’s Instagram post reminder included the textbook definition of a liquid: something that “has no definite shape and takes a shape dictated by its container.”
By that definition, several people wrote in the post’s comments, neither cats nor cranberry sauce should be allowed onboard.
Peanut butter is considered to be “spreadable,” so it falls under the rule for liquids, gels and aerosols, a T.S.A. spokesman, R. Carter Langston, said in an email.
“As we frequently seek to remind travelers: If you can spill it, spray it, spread it, pump it or pour it, then it’s subject to the 3.4-ounce limitation,” he said.
Unlike with firearms — there were a record 6,301 guns intercepted by T.S.A. in 2022 — the administration does not track the…
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