To celebrate National Peanut Butter Month, I recently went on a quest through marketing jungle, advertising and catchy slogans to find my favorite peanut butter.
I tossed aside previous bias, put on a blindfold and delved into the creamy paste many college students can live off for days at a time. Peanut butter tastes great on toast, bagels, crackers, ice cream or, my personal favorite, right out of the jar. It's a poor college kid's dream come true in a bottle.
In this experiment, I judged strictly on taste. Calories, price, nutritional value and all other factors were not considered.
I entered this taste test with a few biases. Before, I swore Peter Pan was the best peanut butter created by man. I hated Skippy and anything natural.
Here is what I found on a second examination of seven very different peanut butter brands.
Let's start with the worst. Coming in a very distant last is Smucker's Natural Creamy Peanut Butter. I absolutely hated this peanut butter. First off, the texture is like sand mixed in glue. After one nibble I gagged. Then the aftertaste made me gag again. I never want to smell, taste or look at this product again. Some things are not meant to be completely natural, a fact Pamela Anderson understands well.
Number six on the list is Our Family Crunchy.
Anything crunchy does not please me. I thought it might, because sometimes you just crave a little crunch in your life. But it had a bland taste and an awkward aftertaste. I reached for a glass of water right afterwards and did not even consider taking a second bite.
Reeling in at number five is the second crunchy flavor tested. Great Value Crunchy is not a bad peanut butter. It had a thin taste, and the peanuts tasted like they just came out of the shell. Overall, it was not as rich as I expected. Let's just face it - creamy rocks and crunchy doesn't.
Now things start to get really sticky in the rankings. Surprisingly, Jif came in fourth. I expected more from the brand moms like best, but it had an odd taste compared to others.
Jif has a rich taste, but it stuck to every part of my mouth. I had to smack my lips like Chevy Chase eating dry turkey in Christmas Vacation"" to get it all down my throat. Jif's initial taste was quite good, but the aftertaste was weird. Others out-performed this old family favorite.
Third place goes to my beloved Peter Pan brand. I really like the taste of Peter Pan because it is distinct from all the rest. It is much lighter, almost whipped and much smoother. I could tell it was Peter Pan right away with its creamy smoothness. It's almost silky, yet has a very strong peanut taste. It's a great overall product.
Skippy earned second place in my taste test. As I said before, I normally despise Skippy. It can sit on my shelf for months before being finished, but its rich taste really delivered. Skippy has a very different, smoky taste. I am now a fan.
Now the big moment has arrived. Skippy, Jif and Peter Pan have already been mentioned. So what's left?
The best overall peanut butter is Great Value Creamy Peanut Butter. This generic brand kicked all the other brands' butts. It battled Skippy for the number one spot, but in the end I could not deny the great balance of flavor in Great Value. While reaching for a second bite, I could picture someone sitting down, grinding up the peanuts and putting it into a generic bottle.
Sometimes you get what you pay for. This is usually true with prostitutes and hitmen. But Great Value shattered this common belief with its huge success and is now officially the best tasting peanut butter in the world of Emily Bisek.
If you don't have any plans this Spring Break and want to help Emily finish off the extra peanut butter she has from her taste test, e-mail her at bisek@wisc.edu.
