It's ok to be choosy

Jif says so.

Jif Natural Peanut Butter

Where purchased: Meijer
Cost: $2.22 (18 oz)
Overall rating: 2.5/5

My husband, Noah, is a Jif Man. Growing up his family had generic brand everything – except peanut butter. And they took it even further than that. No Peter Pan, no Skippy – only Jif. So, you can imagine my surprise when he suggested trying the new Natural Jif peanut butter…

Natural Jif has almost identical nutritional information to traditional Jif. There are 2 differences:
1) Natural JIF has 140 Calories from Fat, and Regular has 130.
2) Natural JIF has 75 mg of sodium, and Regular has 150 mg.

So, let me be clear. According to the nutrition label, we’re not reducing fat intake, we’re not reducing calorie intake, and we’re not reducing sugar intake by choosing Jif Natural. Only salt intake. The other differences appear when looking at the ingredients:
Jif Natural                      Regular Jif
     Peanuts                            Peanuts and sugar
     Sugar                               (is this different from peanuts, sugar?)
Less than 2% of:               Less than 2% of:
       Palm oil                         Molasses
       Salt                               Fully hydrogenated veg. oils
       Molasses                       (rapeseed and soybean)
                                            Mono- and diglycerides
                                            Salt

To be able to give a fair rating to this product, I felt I had to do somewhat of a cost/benefit analysis. Namely: does the substitution of palm oil for the fully hydrogenated vegetable oils and mono and diglycerides give me a large enough health benefit to sacrifice the taste/texture that I love about regular JIF peanut butter?

For me, the answer is no. The answer might be different for you. But here’s my reasoning (and this is where some of you might just want to skip to the next paragraph!). First, let’s take a step back and look at what we are dealing with. We are talking about ingredients that make up less than 2% of the finished product. The primary ingredient here is still peanuts, which we know are a good source of protein and more desirable fats. And even though Jif Natural boasts "Made of 90% peanuts!" on the label, Jif itself says on its Web site that all peanut butters are required by law to be at least 90% peanuts. Which means Jif regular is, too. Second, we know that the regular peanut butter contains less than 0.5 g of trans fat, because the ingredient list shows 0 grams trans fat. Further, after some research, I discovered that FULLY hydrogenated oil (as opposed to partially hydrogenated oil) has NO trans fat. So… IF there are traceable amounts of trans fat in the regular peanut butter, it would only be coming from the mono and diglycerides (fats that act as emulsifiers to provide consistent texture and prevent separation). Also, let’s look at what we are comparing it to. Palm oil – not olive oil, or canola oil, or another oil high in unsaturated fats. No, palm oil is actually very rich in saturated fat, and therefore not considered one of the more “desirable” oils to have in your diet.

I have the same complaint about Jif Natural as most people do about natural peanut butters in general – the consistency is just weird. It feels dry in the mouth and doesn’t spread as well as I’d like it to. Now, don’t get me wrong. I do think Jif made a good effort and tried to keep this product as close to the regular version as possible. It doesn’t separate at all, and it is still spreadable – just not AS spreadable. The taste was a little off for me as well – it actually had a stronger dry-roasted peanut taste. Not sure if that comes from the difference in when they add the sugar, or the reduction of salt, or the different oil? Maybe a combination.

In any case, I won’t be making the switch. Jif made a worthy attempt with this one, but I’m just not ready to give up that creamy deliciousness of the regular  Jif peanut butter I love. So, I am giving it a rating of 2.5 out of 5 – I liked that it was the same price as the regular Jif, it kept some of the classic JIF qualities, and had lower sodium, but I don’t think the flavor and texture sacrifice is worth the slight health benefit.