OK, so in the interest of science, i bought a small jar of Jif and Peter Pan to go along with the jar of Skippy in my pantry. (ETA: All are the baseline creamy varieties.)
My first impression is that I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between the three on a sandwich. I guess peanut butter is what I’ve had for lunch today, as I’ve eaten about 400 calories worth between the three brands.
I just ate it plain on a teaspoon, cleaning my palate with water in between. My impression is that Jif has the most roasted flavor of the three. It also, oddly, tastes saltier to me, or has a saltier “finish” but it actually has 10mg less salt than Skippy and the same as Peter Pan. Sweetness-wise, they all seem equally sweet to me.
The Peter Pan seems the blandest of the bunch. Still fine on a sandwich, and I’m not sure I’d be able to tell the difference in a double blind test with peanut butter sandwiches. I think I’d be able to pick it out on its own, though, but I wouldn’t wager a lot of money on it. It didn’t seem to have as much or as deep a peanut flavor as the other two.
Skippy seemed the creamiest of the three, but it’s also been sitting in my cupboard where it’s probably about 5 degrees warmer (75F) than the store. Flavorwise, it was a solid American peanut butter, but was missing a little extra zing the Jif seemed to have.
In the end, if forced to rank it, today I liked Jif the best, followed by Skippy, followed by Peter Pan. But on another day, who knows.
I’m pretty sure that’s not how it works. The sugar on the label includes sugar from all sources. They sometimes break out added sugar, but they don’t differentiate between sweeteners. For instance, a fruit only product will still have a sugar content. Honey, molasses and agave all still have sugar contents that get added to the total.
Hey thanks! I appreciate the effort and the review. Very thorough.
I’ll try to update this thread when I get my jar of Jif. I plan to review the 1/3 less sodium and sugar version of Skippy against the Natural version of Jif since that’s what I’m used to, and their sugar and salt contents are roughly comparable based on the label.
Interesting to know, but they’re still different products. Smucker’s peanut butter is the “hippy style” of natural – it’s just ground nuts and salt. It’s got a grainy texture and the oil separates out requiring mixing and refrigeration. I actually like it a lot, too, but it’s a pain because it doesn’t spread as easily and can get messy when stirring.
Jif Natural isn’t like that. It’s smooth and creamy like “normal” Jif, just a LITTLE bit nuttier.
It’s been many years, maybe a decade, but I do remember liking Smuckers natural as far as the natural peanut butters go. As I said above, what I expect from a sandwich peanut butter is essentially peanut Crisco. But that one I did like–it didn’t seem as awful as the freshly ground peanut butter my dad used to buy at the store when I was a kid. I remember as a kid thinking “how in the fuck is this peanut butter? There is nothing ‘buttery’ about it. It’s just sandy peanuts swimming in a pool of oil.”
When I was a young lad, my mom wouldn’t buy Jif. She would always buy the store brand. We weren’t rich, we weren’t poor. We were squarely in the middle of the middle class. But she just wouldn’t buy that magical jar with the enticing blue, red, and green stripes.
Around here “sugar” in the ingredients means sucrose (“sucrose”, from the French “sugar”). Anything else is “pear” or “apple” (we don’t use corn syrup much).
In the nutritional information, it’s “sugars”, which includes fructose/maltose etc.
Personally, I like my PB with everything except sweeteners. Salt: yes. Emulsifiers: yes. Margarine: yes. I buy it in big buckets* from the Chinese Shop, because the supermarkets only stock American style and (more recently), plain/organic.
FWIW, the traditional Aus peanut butter in the 60’s was peanuts and salt, using a very light roast. Something of the flavour of raw peanuts, if you’ve ever tried that. Not available at all now.
*In residential college, I was surprised to learn that locals regarded PB as a condiment. With my American background, I’d always thought of PB as a food.
The ‘natural’ stuff can have a better flavor, but they are generally more of a hassle to use and their spreadability just isn’t. Suitable for baking or spoons.
I have a definite favorite peanut. The flea markets and such generally have red Mexican peanuts for sale, and after eeating some of those roasted, the regular American roasted peanuts taste just awful.
Why are you putting natural in scare quotes? And what hassle? Sure, it sometimes needs to be stirred the first time you open it, but it spreads just as easily as any of the vaguely peanut flavored shortenings. And it has a far better flavor.
No. This has been mentioned upthread. If you store it in the cabinet, it re-separates each time, and you end up re-stirring. If you store it in the fridge, it doesn’t re-separate, but then spreading it can be a real PITA. There is a REASON that they make JIF and Skippy and Peter Pan have the consistency it does, and it can be guaranteed that, if a more “natural” consistency was desirable, or even equally good, then that’s what they would choose.
Mass-produced peanut butters like Skippy are so easy to spread, because they don’t drip, they don’t need stirring and they can easily cover a given area with only one or two motions of a knife. I love natural peanut butters (and sunflower butters and …), but I acknowledge that they come with use deficits.
For you natural peanut butter lovers, which do you like? As I said above, I do remember liking Smucker’s, but it’s been about ten years since I’ve last had it. I don’t recall it separating out all that much. When I was a kid, my dad would buy the stuff that would actually be ground on-site, and it separated easily and just did not have a consistency that pleased my young palate: just grainy and oily. But I don’t remember Smucker’s having this problem. It seemed like a halfway point between that type of fresh peanut butter and the smooth hydrogenated stuff.
I’m nearly 60 years old, and I’ve been eating real peanut butter nearly all my life. This doesn’t even remotely match my experience. It needs stirring once, maybe. I think it depends on the quality of the peanuts, and it covers the bread just as easily as the fake stuff. Sure it’s harder to spread if it’s cold, but not as hard as cold Skippy or Jif.
I prefer Smucker’s. I’ve never had to stir it. I think they use consistently higher quality peanuts than some of the cheap stuff. Store brands can be hit or miss, and can have way too much oil, although this is easily dealt with by pouring some of it off before stirring it. I’ve had some that was actually too runny after stirring, and thought that I could fix it by letting it separate and getting rid of some of the excess oil. After two weeks of sitting in the cupboard, I gave up on it ever separating and just dealt with it being on the runny side. I think it has to sit undisturbed a very long time to separate.
OK, my wife is going to kill me when she notices how many different jars of peanut butter are in the cupboard right now (or maybe I’ll just hide them in my room), but I had to go out and buy some Smucker’s during today’s grocery trip that I just got back from.
I’ll get to that in a sec. Looking at the labels on other “natural” peanut butters – they are not all created equal, so the scare quotes can be justified. Jif and Skippy both have “natural” versions of their peanut butter, but in that case it mainly means the hydrogenated vegetable oil is replaced with palm oil, from what I could tell. I believe on both brands the ingredients were peanuts, sugar, palm oil, salt. So, yes, natural ingredients, but not as “natural” as just peanuts and salt, which is what Smucker’s is.
Anyhow, the Smuckers was oilier than I remember. It was separated out when I opened it. But it was very good, much better than the freshly ground stuff I remember as a kid. Perhaps it is just more finely ground. It still has a bit of a gritty texture to it, but not objectionable. It definitely tastes saltier than the other brands I tried upthread (110 mg sodium), and without the sweetness, of course, since it has no sugar. I would definitely use this in a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and certainly for cooking (which is probably how I’m mostly going to use this up).
Since you’re the science guy now (but I’ll be happy to get an answer from anyone), I’ve been curious about a couple things. First is the “natural” designation that you’ve noted. As you say, Jif and Skippy both have natural versions. Does this mean that the oil is not hydrogenated? How could one tell that?
The other is something I’ve been posting about for a long time and maybe should be the subject of another thread. But since people are talking about spreadability and refrigeration, does peanut butter have to be refrigerated? How about the natural versions? (I’ve actually done a bit of research on this and haven’t found a definitive answer.)
ETA: Jif is in the lead at this moment. 58.97%
I appreciate the effort and the review. Very thorough.
