With the recent peanut product recalls due to an outbreak of Salmonella Typhimurium, everyone is concerned about peanut butter, even President Obama. While major national brands of jarred peanut butter were not among the products recalled, many moms are still wary of buying anything with peanuts. So let me assure you that MaraNatha® Peanut Butters, which are produced in the United States, do not contain peanut butter produced by the Peanut Corporation of America (PCA).
MaraNatha peanut butters are made in small batches with a special grinding process using carefully roasted Organic Valencia or Natural Runner peanut varietals. Their peanut butters come several ways: creamy and crunchy, either with or without salt. They also produce no-stir varieties and an organic peanut spread with added calcium.
All natural peanut butter – better tasting and better for you
I love peanut butter and was a Skippy kid from way back. Then I started reading labels and realized that many commercial brands had fillers and too much added sugar and salt. Yuck! So I starting buying peanut butters that used 100% peanuts and maybe a little salt.
Problem was that you had to stir the ground peanuts with the oil. What a pain! Either you’d have greasy peanut butter at the top, good peanut butter in the middle, and then some hardened stuff that you think was made out of peanuts at the bottom. Recently, when trying to stir the hardened stuff, the oil went shooting out of the jar and on to a now permanently stained pair of yoga pants and t-shirt. I was ready to try another brand.
MaraNathan No-Stir
When I got my coupons to try MaraNatha peanut butter from the Parent Bloggers Network, I was happy that my local Safeway carried an organic, no-stir variety. I got a jar of crunchy and a jar of smooth, and couldn’t wait to get home and try it.
As you may know from my main blog, This Mama Cooks! On a Diet, I’m on Weight Watchers and must measure and weigh everything to figure out the points. Try doing that with the kind of natural peanut butter you have to stir – you have to scoop it out, pour off the extra oil, smoosh it down into the measuring spoon, and eliminate the extra with a knife. What a mess! With the MaraNatha peanut butter, I dipped my tablespoon into the jar, scooped out what I needed, and then leveled off the spoon by wiping it over the rim of the jar. Since the peanut butter was super creamy, it was easy to spread on to toast without tearing the bread, too.
The MaraNatha Organic Peanut Butter - No Stir was delicious. The taste of the roasted peanuts seemed more “roasterier” than other peanut butters I’ve eaten. It was worth having one tablespoon for two Weight Watchers POINTS.
Added oil and other nut butters
MaraNatha no stir peanut butters have non-hydrogenated palm fruit oil added to the peanuts to keep the nut oil from separating from the solid part of the nut. Adding the palm oil results in nut butter that does not need to be stirred.
Palm oil is not hydrogenated, contains zero trans fats and is lower in saturated fat than butter. It's a vegetable oil and is cholesterol free. The palm oil MaraNatha uses is extracted from the palm fruit, using mechanical (not chemical) means.
They also add organic sugar and some sea salt for taste. In this case, I don’t mind the extra ingredients since peanut butter is a treat and not a food staple. However, if you want a one that is 100% peanuts, try MaraNatha’s Organic Peanut Butter – no salt. There is also Organic Creamy with salt, Organic Crunchy with salt and Organic Crunchy with no salt.
MaraNatha also makes natural peanut butters that are sweetened with evaporated cane juice, and a variety of other nut butters (almond, cashew, and macadamia).
While MaraNatha peanut butter is more expensive than store brand peanut butter, the fact that it’s delicious, organic and no stir have won me over. When I run out, I’ll be purchasing another jar for sure.
