A tale of three peanut butters

Until recently, I never really gave much thought to peanut butter. It’s usually Jif Extra Crunchy that I grab off the shelf. Back home it was always Kraft Crunchy peanut butter (the one with the bears).

I’ve always liked crunchy peanut butter. It’s a texture thing. Bread (preferably toasted) is my usual vehicle for peanut butter. I’ve never really done much in the way of cooking with peanut butter. Peanut butter was probably one of my very first favourite foods. I remember peanut butter and ketchup sammiches being a dietary staple when I was a kid (yeah, say ‘eeww’ until you try it once). Peanut butter and honey on crackers kept my brain fueled during exam times while I was in undergrad. I’ve also been known to eat peanut butter by the spoon.

At the grocery store the other day, I was checking out all the different peanut butter selections and thought maybe I’d try something different. In addition to the usual Jif, I picked out two that didn’t have any extras, including sugar.

Serving size for all of the peanut butters is 32 g (2 Tbsp) and 190 calories (Smuckers is 200 calories).

First up is the standard Jif. 7 g of carbs (2 g fiber, 3 g sugars). Made with roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils and salt.

Has a nice roasted peanut flavour and big chunky bits of peanuts. Good on a couple of slices of toasted whole grain bread.

The next one was one called Fifty 50. The label touts it as a low glycemic peanut butter with no added sugar. There was no crunchy version on the shelf, so I had to settle for the smooth. The label says half their profits go towards diabetes research.

Made with peanuts and hydrogenated vegetable oil. 7 g of carbs (3 g fiber, 1 g sugar). Smooth in texture, the flavour seemed kind of bland. The ingredients list doesn’t explicitly say roasted peanuts like Jif’s label does, so that might be a factor in the flavour area. Maybe it will be better on toast.

The Smucker’s Natural Chunky peanut butter has the simplest list of ingredients: peanuts and <1% salt.

Without the hydrogenated oils, this one is prone to separating, so a good stir is in order before using it. 6 g carbs (2 g fiber, 1 g sugar). A little more peanut-y flavour than the Fifty50, but not as much as the Jif. Again, roasted peanuts aren’t stated on the label, although Smucker’s organic variant does list roasted peanuts in its ingredient list. Will have to see how this one is on toast as well.

It will probably take me a while to go through all this peanut butter. I might have to find something else to do with them other than spreading it on toast.