The Best Peanut Butter

Unless you're allergic to peanuts you've been eating peanut butter since you were weaned off those small bottles of Gerber's mushy banana baby foods. Peanut butter is a staple of any kitchen and the national brands have a two titan battle for the cupboards of America. One the one side you have JIF, the Peanut Butter of the Smuckers Spreadable Goliath, and on the other side you have the seemingly David-like Skippy, actually owned by the monolithic Unilever company. But as we grow up we grow tired of the bland tastes of childhood and the mono-culture of the supermarket. We discover that the all-natural Adams isn't just for hippies, but actually tastes better. We might also try the "Grind The Peanut" station at the local co-op and enjoy the pure taste of unsweetened peanut butter.

But at the end of the day, no matter how much we may wish otherwise, we are Americans. And as Americans we demand the best. So what is the best peanut butter? If you are looking to invest in a peanut butter company then you might judge this by sales, but if you are going to eat it, you need more than sales data and popularity to determine which peanut butter deserves to be spread before you.

In order to achieve honest results the tasters did not know which peanut butters they were tasting. Each peanut butter was rated on Taste, Saltiness, Texture, and Spreadability on a 10-point scale.

The four peanut butters tested were Maranatha Organic, Kettle Foods Organic, Grind-To-Order from Winco Foods, and Adams Organic. The results were quite surprising.

Maranatha Organic - Score: 4.95

Kettle Organic - Score: 4.49

Grind to Order Winco - Score: 6.34

Adams Organic - Score: 7.55

While the Maranatha and the Kettle were both mildly disliked, the Grind To Order was a noticeable step up, but the end result was a universal pull to the Adams Organic. It's lowest score was in Saltiness, but was the only peanut butter to average over 5 in that category. One trend noticed was that overall score followed the same order as the saltiness score. Also we found that the older the taster, the more saltiness they wanted from their peanut butter, adding some evidence to our theory that there is a clear difference between a child's peanut butter and an adult's peanut butter.

But in the world of Peanut Butter it's Goliath that ends up stomping on the little David. The best tasting organic peanut butter is owned by Smuckers, so for those of you raised on JIF you can find satisfaction in knowing that your adult tastes are being met by the same company that raised you. Now that's America!