Peanut butter is one of my all-time favorite foods, so when FriendsEAT was given the opportunity to review four different varieties of peanut butter from PB Crave (Peanut Butter With A Twist), I was delighted FriendsEAT co-founder Blanca Valbuena allowed me to be the taste tester.
Peanut Butter’s General Health Benefits
First off, peanut butter doesn’t just taste good, it’s a quick, convenient food and good for you. Peanut butter supplies fiber in your diet, along with vitamins, minerals, potassium, and other nutrients.
Harvard Health notes numerous studies indicate people who regularly include nuts or peanut butter in their diets are less likely to develop heart disease or type 2 diabetes than those who rarely eat nuts.
CNN notes that at least five major studies confirm that eating peanuts can lower risk for coronary heart disease.
According to Prevention, one serving of peanut butter has 3 mg of the powerful antioxidant vitamin E, 49 mg of bone-building magnesium, 208 mg of muscle-friendly potassium, and 0.17 mg of immunity-boosting vitamin B6.
And peanut butter contains heart-healthy monounsaturated fat. “A recent study found that insulin-resistant adults who ate a diet high in monos had less belly fat than people who ate more carbohydrates or saturated fat.”
Peanut butter can also help dieters lose weight because it’s high in fiber and protein. As a result, even a small snack type amount allows you to feel full longer.
PB Crave Taste Test
As with all natural style peanut butter, there’s no emulsifying agent to bind the peanut butter into a creamy texture, so the oil floats above the peanut butter and you have to stir vigorously before eating. PB Crave offers what they refer to as four natural peanut butter blends:
Razzle Dazzle
A twisted blend of red raspberry, wild honey, and white chocolate. They begin with their fresh peanuts raised by family farms, then add natural raspberry flavoring, mix in white and semi-sweet chocolate and a touch of honey.
How Does It Taste?
Heavenly. Spread Razzle Dazzle on bread and you’re essentially eating a peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwich with a dollop of melted white chocolate. All PB Crave peanut butter is so flavorful you’ll find yourself eating it with a spoon.
Cookie Nookie
A mix of chocolate chips, cookie dough flavor, wild honey and peanut butter. They blend in natural cookie flavoring and add chunks of real milk chocolate, with a dash of honey.
How Does It Taste?
My hands down favorite! First your taste buds are greeted with a blend of cookie dough mixed with chocolate chips and then a rich, thick sensation of peanut butter settles on your tongue.
CoCo Bananas
A blend of bananas, cocoa and wild honey. They include their signature peanuts and add a mix of “natural” banana flavor, real chunks of semi-sweet chocolate and honey.
How Does It Taste?
I couldn’t get past the so-called “natural” banana flavor, which to me tasted artificial.
Choco Choco
A double dose of semi-sweet and rich dark chocolate with peanut butter and wild honey. They mixed their quality peanut butter with dark chocolate from Belgium, along with honey.
How Does It Taste?
Like a stand-alone delightful dessert. You could actually serve a few scoops of vanilla or chocolate ice cream crowned with Choco Choco as a substitute for chocolate sauce. Better than Reeses Pieces. Loved it!
PB Crave Ingredients
As with most peanut butter, peanuts and sugar are the two main ingredients, in that order.
PB Crave claims to have:
-No hydrogenated oil
(The trans fat additive that makes regular peanut butter smooth)
–No artificial flavors
–No syrups
–No high-fructose corn syrup
–Gluten and cholesterol free
Palm Oil and Soy Lecithin
Two additives in PB Crave peanut butter worth mentioning are palm oil and soy lecithin.
Palm oil cultivation has been criticized for impacts on the natural environment, including deforestation, loss of natural habitats, which has threatened critically endangered species such as the orangutan.
Soy lecithin is an additive found in many foods, and usually never exceeds more than 1 percent of the weight of any food product.
Lecithin is naturally occurring in soybeans and extracted using harsh chemical solvents, and like all soybean products, comes from genetically modified soybean plants.
Ninety-five percent of soya in the world is transgenic. Roughly eighty-five percent of the soy gown in the US is Roundup Ready, genetically modified soy.
And since soy derivatives, including oil, flour and lecithin, are found in the majority of processed foods sold in the US, most of us consume ingredients derived from genetically modified soy.
Prevent Disease points out that soybean lecithin comes from sludge left after crude soy oil goes through a “degumming” process.
It is a waste product containing solvents and pesticides and has a consistency ranging from a gummy fluid to a plastic solid.
Inquisitive foodie with a professional investigative background and strong belief in the organic farm to table movement. Author of Bad Seeds: A FriendsEAT Guide to GMO's.
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