Healthy peanut butters?

you can also make your own -
irections for Making Peanut Butter

Makes about 1 quart of peanut butter

Ingredients

1 bag of unshelled peanuts or 1 can (2 cups or 1 lb) of shelled, raw or roasted peanuts (I think unsalted is healthier - you can always add salt, if you want to)
Vegetable oil (just a small amount, 1 or 2 tablespoons). I prefer peanut oil, but corn, sunflower, safflower, etc,. all work. I would not use olive oil because it would adversely affect the taste.
Equipment

Blender or Food processor (a blender or fine food grinder seems to work best)

Bowl

Spatula

Recipe and Directions

Step 1 - Shell the peanuts

Unless you bought shelled peanuts, you will obviously need to shell them and discard the shells (they make great mulch in the garden or add to your compost). I just quickly shell them by hand, and don't bother much with the thin read skins. When I have the peanuts shelled, I take them outside and just blow into the bowl while stirring it. The skins float away!

Step 2 - Assemble your blender or food processor and ingredients

Set up your blender or food processor with the metal food processor blade attached, and add 2 cups of raw or roasted shelled peanuts into it.

Step 3 - Get chopping!

Cover the bowl with the blender's lid and chop up the peanuts continuously for 2 to 3 minutes or until the mixture starts to clump up and is finely chopped.
Step 4 - Scrape and finish chopping

Scrape down the food processor bowl to mix back the peanuts that are pushed to the outside where they won't get chopped. Process until you get the consistency you like (chunky or smooth).

Step 5 - Add the vegetable oil

Most peanuts don't contain enough oil naturally to make a smooth butter. You only need to add about 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of vegetable oil (peanut oil is best, obviously, but any neutral flavored oil, like sunflower or canola oil works). Just mix it in with a fork. Your blender may not be powerful enough to do this without sticking, so you may want to mix the oil in, in a separate bowl.
Step 6 - Tasting

Taste the peanut butter and add a touch of salt, if you like! For those that prefer a sweet peanut butter, you can add 1 tablespoon of honey, brown sugar or, if you are diabetic, Stevia, my preference (or if you prefer, Splenda) or other artificial sweetener.

Step 7 - Eat or store

Just spoon peanut butter into a jar and seal. Store it in the refrigerator until you use it. It should keep for a month or two. You can also freeze it. It will keep indefinitely in the freezer. In both cases, you may need to stir the peanut butter to mix the oils back in (the oil tends to separate over time). And no, you cannot "can" the peanut butter - it is too low acid to safely can with home equipment.

I love JIF all natural

But I also love Naturally More Peanut Butter. 169 cals, 14g fat, 7 carb, and 9 protein for 2T. You only have to stir it once, and then it stays like that, AND you don't have to refrigerate it

I too used to like Naturally More but I picked up their jar last week and was disappointed to see that they lowered the protein from 10 to 9g. When I read the ingredient listing, they added soy protein which made me think they reduced the egg whites used. I don't do soy protein so I no longer buy Naturally More.

If you want PB to make sandwiches, then there are a number of good ones out there but most "natural" ones will still be oily to a certain degree. I freeze them for a few hours to to make it thicker and scrape off the top oily layer.

You can get PB2 if you're just looking for a substitute for smoothies and what not, though - plus its lower in calorie and gives the taste of peanut butter.

You know when I was rereading the ingredients, I was like what happened to the egg whites?! Oh man, I just noticed the upped the calories from 169 to 180. pfft! I better go to TJs and find something else..

MaraNatha peanut butter is fantastic, I'm also a HUGE fan of super creamy peanut butter and MaraNatha is organic, the first ingredient is peanuts and it's super creamy and delicious. I love it and highly recommend it. Also try other nut butters, like sunbutter (sunflower seed butter) is so good and healthy and almond butter.

I eat Skippy's natural crunchy peanut butter. I'm not sure how it is health-wise, but it's delicious :glasses:
Never had to stir it..

Read a peer reviewed article comparing peanut butters (both natural and those with hydrogenated oils) for trans fats.

You get like 0.0032 grams/servings of trans fats in those with hydrogenated oils.

Translation: any peanut butter is fine.

Being the health nut I am I do like the occasional natural peanut butter anyway, but I'm currently working on a jar of "natural" no stir Jif. Tastes like the regular stuff, and I get 0.5g of extra saturated fat with half that being MCT's from the palm oil and it has less salt.

I love JIF! I use if for my sandwiches... but for my PB and apples I get PB2... you can get it on amazon.com

I use 2 tablespoons of the PB@ and 1.5 tablespoons of water (they suggest 1 tablespoon of water).

It is quite yummy.

Smart Balance makes a good natural pb. Even has omega-3.

I couldnt get used to the taste of it myself....I use whatever is on sale crunchy style..tblsp on apples, bananas, celery and once in awhile on toast....I think all PB's are good for you ...just in moderation.