Peanut Butter Options

If you guessed my first post would have to do with peanut butter you are correct! I decided to do a personal review of the available alternatives to peanut butter and how good or bad in some cases they are. Here is what I have found. If you know of others please share.
Side Note: This is just a a review of items that are actually attempting to replace peanut butter and its flavor. There are other delicious options to peanut butter that have their own flavor. I will review them in another post. They include:

• Almond butter  
• Sunflower seed butter 
• Cashew butter 
• Pecan butter 
• Soybean butter
• Sesame butter 

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PB Review

Rating: 0-5 stars
Better N Peanut Butter - 4+ Stars
Ingredients: It’s basically made with peanut flour, tapioca starch, cane juice rice syrup, soy flour a few vitamins and flavoring. Overall the ingredients are not bad. 

Flavors: Original PB, Chocolate, Coconut Chocolate, Banana, Raspberry Chocolate, Hot Pepper, and Maple Bacon.

Taste: So far I have sampled the Original PB, Chocolate, Raspberry Chocolate and the Coconut Chocolate.  Overall they are pretty good. Right now my favorite is the coconut chocolate. The original has more of a maple or rice syrup taste than regular peanut butter, but nice consistency. It is pretty satisfying and at half the calories, it is a good alternative.

Where to buy: I get mine at Trader Joes but it is also available at Target, Rite Aid and Kroger. You can also purchase online although I have found it surprisingly cheaper in the stores. 


PB2 Powdered Peanut Butter -  3+Stars
Ingredients: roasted peanuts, sugar and salt that’s it. Chocolate also has cocoa.

Flavors: peanut butter and chocolate peanut butter

Taste: it is a powder, which for the pb connoisseur is a bit odd at first. You basically mix 2T of powder with 1T of water to get your serving.  Ok the peanut butter one doesn’t really provide the same peanut butter satisfaction. I wasn’t really motivated to spread it on toast and eat it, but it did nicely in my oatmeal and other items I like to flavor with pb. It also works well in shakes. Of the two, I like the chocolate peanut butter a bit better. One tip: use slightly cool or room temp water when mixing, hot is not good. With so few calories and no artificial ingredients, it is a good option to explore with recipes rather than eating by the spoonful. 

Where to Buy: I have seen it at most major grocers, health food stores and online.

 Walden Farms Whipped Peanut Butter Spread – 0 Stars 
Ingredients Vegetable Fiber, Sea Salt, Corn Starch, Xanthan Gum, Peanut Flavor, Carmel Color, Lactic Acid, Sucralose, Sodium Benzonate

Flavors: Roasted Peanut Flavor

Taste:  Not good. It tastes like chemical fake food in a vegetable base.  I tried to be open minded to where it could be useful but with more processed, artificial ingredients and poor taste quality I couldn’t find a use.

Where to Buy – in most grocers in the diabetic or weight loss section

Wow Butter - 4 Stars
Ingredients: toasted soy, soy oil, cane sugar, mono glyceride (from palm oil), sea salt

Flavors: Wow butter flavor in creamy or crunchy

Taste: They claim to be healthier than peanut butter. Unless you have concerns regarding alflatoxin or peanuts in general, the nutrient content is pretty much the same between the two products and calories are just as high. If you just need a pb alternative it is pretty tasty. It has a nutty, slightly salty flavor and would make a good sandwich spread or use in any way you currently like to enjoy your peanut butter.

Where to Buy: Whole Foods, Walmart, Sprouts, you can also go to wowbutter .com and search retailers near you.

Flavor Drops -  2 Stars
Ingredients: Carrier (propylene Glycol) beetroot natural flavoring, sucralose or stevia, water

Flavors: peanutbutter chocolate peanut butter  and many non pb flavors

Taste: I mentioned these because they are getting more popular. You can add the drops to other foods to get the flavor of peanut butter or other tastes. They are often mixed in oatmeal or shakes or yogurt. I prefer the stevia options over sucralose. They can sometimes fix a hankering for pb flavor when you can’t take on more calories. But I would not suggest consuming frequently or in large quantities though that would be tough to do since only a few drops are needed to get the flavor. 

Where to Buy:  myprotein.com or capellaflavordrops.com