This review brought to you by Parent Bloggers Network and Maranatha Nut Butters.

If I told you how much peanut butter we ate in this house, you’d say, “Nope. I just don’t believe it!”

Because you’re skeptical like that. And that’s why I like you.

But in this case, the preposterous also happens to be true.

We eat hella peanut butter!

First of all, it’s one of the few (i.e. only) proteins that one of my children will eat. I know, I know…spoilt brat, put a hunk of sushi in front of her and when she gets hungry enough she’ll eat it, kids starving in West Virginia, etc.

Listen. There’s just no putting that genie back in the bottle. Here. Read this when you’re done with the peanut butter review.

I will say that as a health conscious wanna-be, I was a bit alarmed to read the label of our favorite store brand (because we’re poor cheap like that) peanut butter to find that it contained not only corn syrup, hydrogenated rapeseed (!), and molasses, but also peanut oil AND peanuts as well!

Don’t the peanut butter manufacturers know how dangerous peanuts can be?

And yet they just add them willy-nilly to peanut butter like they’re going out of style instead of treating them like the bloodthirsty killer they are.

Peanut butter in the library with a beaker of salmonella!
Peanut butter will rot your mind!
Peanut butter, up your nose with a rubber hose!

But but but but but...we LOVE peanut butter!

Why without peanut butter, a PBJ is just a J. Without peanut butter, a peanut butter cup is just an empty chocolate shell. Without peanut butter, we’d live our lives forever with gum in our hair.

Well, until the good scientists at Amalgamated Plastics and Other Fake Foods can create a refined petrochemical-soy substitute for peanuts, we’re just going to have to take our chances with the real thing.

However, while taking our chances, we thought we’d hedge our bets a bit and check out some health food peanut butter. Namely, Maranatha brand organic peanut butter.

Now, in the past, my attempts to trick my children into being more safe and healthy have failed miserably (e.g. bike helmet made of concrete, Brussels Sprout cupcakes, telling them swimming pools were filled with dead bug pee, etc.) Our experience with healthy peanut butter, specifically, lead us to believe that any peanut butter that had to be refrigerated was the equivalent of cardboard spackle, both in texture and taste.

So, when I took the straight-forward approach and told them that they would be taste testing some healthy peanut butter against our favorite store brand, one child immediately hid under her bed, the other child immediately came down with a stomach virus, and the third child took off his diaper and wore it on his head in protest.

I was not deterred.

The sick child got a bye to move on to the popsicle and BRAT diet round.

The eldest child was less than enthusiastic, but after much cajoling and a not-so-subtle threat, was enjoined to be a good sport and play along.

The youngest child threw his diaper at the cat.



Taste Test

We blind taste-tested three different nut butters:

Maranatha Organic No Stir Peanut Butter, creamy style

Local store brand peanut butter, creamy style (our usual)

Maranatha All Natural No Stir Almond Butter, creamy style

For our taste test, each nut butter was spread on a slice of whole wheat toast.

I guess we should have taste-tested another brand of organic no stir peanut butter as a comparison, but basically, we’ve not had much luck with those, and if you think I was going to open yet another jar of peanut butter, you’d be high on aflatoxin mold. As it is, I’ve stretched our monthly meal plan to include recipes for Thai Peanut Sauce and Peanut Butter Cheese Steaks.

So! How did our blind taste test go? Well, listen to what our reviewer had to say!


Maranatha Organic No Stir Peanut Butter, creamy style

“Very smooth. Tastes not a lot like nuts, but not too little. It’s enjoyable! It’s fresh and light! Feels like a lot when it’s not. I would name this peanut butter Nuttyfresh Delight.”

Local store brand peanut butter, creamy style

“No nutty taste, although there are some parts where I can taste the bread, so it’s thin. I can also taste some parts that I don’t know what they are. I would name this peanut butter Thin Butter.”

Maranatha All Natural No Stir Almond Butter, creamy style

“It tastes like almond butter. Like peanut butter no. 1 it is enjoyable. I would call it Almond Joyful Extreme.”


Well! Looks like our taste tester was sold on Maranatha Organic nut butters of all species! Store brand, not so much. Unless you like peanut butter that doesn't taste so much like...anything.


No Stir

As the opinion of the butter spreader, I will say that the Maranatha no stirs seemed just as smooth as our stir-free regular store brand, and that was even after sitting in a cold car all night. I have no worries that refrigeration would turn the peanut butter into a cement cylinder. It won't.

The almond butter did have a bit of oil on the top, but if you’re going off the board for almond butter, I’d think you’d want something a little more exotic, something that really allows you to experience the nut butter.

I don’t actually mind stirring nut butters, but then again, I don’t get a lot of exercise otherwise.


Nutrition

All three of the nut butters seemed to stack up about the same. A serving size of 2 tablespoons got you 190 calories, with 150 of those calories coming from fat, 140 fat calories for the Maranatha No Stir Peanut Butter.

Sodium was lowest in the almond butter (65 mg) and highest in the store brand (160 mg), with Maranatha Organic No Stir Peanut Butter at 70 mg.

Sugars were 3 grams for each, but the Maranatha brands did not contain corn syrup. (I know some people hate corn syrup with a white hot passion, so I thought I’d include this information.)

The almond butter kicked serious butt in the protein ring with 8% to the 4% of the other nut butters. It also had more calcium (8% compared to 2%) and a listing of 40% for vitamin E and 20% for magnesium.


Safety

For those concerned about safety, check out Maranatha's FAQ page.

Maranatha isn't pulling any punches and there's a lot of open information on their website about the safety and nutrition of their nut butters.

After filtering through it all, I can honestly say that I'd feel comfrotable feeding my family Maranatha nut butters, even without a cement bike helmet.

Price

Well…here’s the rub. If you eat a lot of nut butter and you're living on a strict budget, the store brand is going to win every time. In our Central Pennsylvania grocery store, the Maranatha organics rang in a $4.89 for the peanut butter (16 oz.) and $4.89 for the almond butter (12 oz.)

I know you can’t put a price on good health, but high prices on most organics make it difficult to feed a family of five on a strict organic diet, even when we do cut down on pre-packaged foods and pound our own hummus.

On top of that, let’s face it: sometimes organic or “health foods” taste…well… different. All that lack of salt and sugar and the mind-tingling, mouth-watering goodness of lard is hard to get around if it’s something that you got used to eating in the first place. It’s then even more difficult to take the $4.89 risk that your family is going to like this new-fangled and good-for-them product. And spoonfuls-of-sugar to make the medicine go down are kind of not the point.

One trick I find works is to mix the new with the old for the time being, and slowly decrease the old until everyone is enjoying the taste of the new.

Another fun time might be to have a New Product Taste Test Party with your friends. Everyone bring a tried-and-true real family tasted-tested and healthy alternative dish to a gathering and give it a try before you spend the $7.23 yourself for a head of organic kale, only to then watch it turn to slime in your refrigerator crisper because you can’t figure out what to do with it.

Otherwise, all things in moderation until you win Powerball. We'll probably continue to splurge for organic on those foods we eat most of and consistently.

An almond butter and jelly sandwich one day. A peanut butter cheese steak the next.

And you know you’re not so skeptical that you don’t want to try that.

I believe!