Jif Naturally Creamy Peanut Butter Spread has been a popular staple for kids and adults alike for years. It’s traditionally packed into sandwiches in lunch boxes and goes great on crackers as a midnight snack. Packed full of vitamins and protein, this sandwich spread in the 40-ounce jar, has enough for perhaps 40 peanut butter sandwiches, and could feed a family of four for a couple weeks if they ate it every day. Plus, it’s great eating, right out of the jar, for those times when you know you’re hungry but not enough to prepare a full-blown meal to eat.
Creamy peanut butter is a spread, made primarily from peanuts, in which the nuts are squashed, chopped, or even pureed into a pasty consistency. It can be spread just like butter, mayo, or other popular sandwich fixings, and this natural Jif version fills this product niche’ rather well. For the dieter looking for quick but lasting appetite satiation, there are probably few more convenient, cheap, and nutritious foods than this, that do that job quite well. Not surprising, as Jif has been packaging peanut butter products for many decades.
Key Features
- Solidly packaged and sold just about everywhere.
- No preservatives, artificial colors, or hydrogenated oils. Amazing that they can keep this nut butter from separating without some trans fats. But they do just that in this product.
- No refrigeration required. Kept at room temperature, this product never hardens, and so, is always easily fetched with a butter knife or spoon.
- A “homogenized” peanut butter, this Jif spread does not separate, and so, usually requires no stirring. We observed no separation in our jar, which is over a year old. Thanks to the added palm oil for that.
- Since most pure nut butters in our experience exhibit some separation of the oils and the solids within, and since no separation was observed in this Jif peanut butter, we feared that Smucker must have added some high-tech emulsifiers or other chemicals. However, the label says that minimal oil separation is natural.
- Keeps for long stretches in cool and dark places. Tastes like fresh, honey-roasted peanuts, even two years after the best-if-used-by date has passed.
- Recyclable plastic jar.
- Contains 90-percent peanuts, and smells strongly of them.
- Definitely easy to scoop out of the jar and spread on crackers, bread, taco shells, and on Hershey bars. It’s pretty soft, even when cool.
- Discount coupons are plentiful and some are even offered right in the store, for substantial savings when you buy this peanut butter brand.
- Very smooth and creamy in consistency. No chunks of crunchy peanuts here. It is completely spreadable therefore.
- Works well as a main ingredient in all your peanut butter based recipes like cakes, icings, cookies, pies, candy, and our favorite: Peanut butter fudge. Easily stirred and mixed into batters, since it’s on the softer side.
- Since this product contains 90 percent peanuts, it therefore, offers all the health benefits of this southern grown nut. Peanut butter is therefore, considered a very healthy food, in moderation of course.
- Not being sodium-sensitive ourselves, the salt to us herein, is by no means excessive, yet seriously enhances the taste, which without at least a little salt, can quickly grow to be boring.
- Kids love it and rarely complain about having it often at the midday meal. They like the multi-colored label and deep nutty color that can be seen through the clear sidewalls of the jar.
Disadvantages
- Contains sugar and molasses, which give this product a decidedly sweet taste. Certainly not sugar free. We do not like this, and would much rather have a no-added-sugar peanut butter.
- Contains ten percent sugar, salt, and molasses.
- As sweet as this tastes, you may need no jelly on a PB&J sandwich
- This is not a reduced fat offering, and in fact, they’ve actually added MORE fat to it, in the form of that unhealthy palm oil, to minimize separation.
- No peanut butter fudge recipes on this jar. Often these types of ingredients feature simple recipes for delicious desserts right on their labels. But plenty of these are available on the web, for the curious of heart and hungry of tummy.
- This is certainly a “natural” product, but we feel that it’s not an ALL-natural one.
- People with peanut allergies should avoid this product; due particularly to the severity of typical reactions to peanuts they may experience.
- Though Jif is affordable, there are much cheaper, yet nutritionally similar store brands of peanut butter in the market, and many of those add no artery-clogging palm oil.
- The old glass jars are highly missed.
Nutrition Facts
- Serving Size: 2 tablespoons or 33 grams.
- Servings per 40-ounce container: About 34.
- Calories: 190. Calories from fat: 140.
- Total fat: 15 grams, 24% DV.
- Saturated Fat: 3 grams, 15% DV.
- Trans Fat: 0 grams.
- Cholesterol: 0 milligrams.
- Sodium: 80 milligrams.
- Total Carbohydrate: 8 grams, 3% DV.
- Dietary Fiber: 2 grams, 10% DV.
- Sugars: 3 grams.
- Protein: 7 grams.
- Vitamin A: 0% DV.
- Vitamin E: 10% DV.
- Vitamin C: 0% DV.
- Riboflavin: 2% DV.
- Calcium: 2% DV.
- Niacin: 20% DV.
- Iron: 4% DV.
Ingredients
Peanuts, sugar, palm oil, and contains less than two percent of salt and molasses.
Our Rating
We were disappointed in the highly perceptible amounts of sugars in this product. It’s a bit behind the times with the added palm oil. But the claims on the label about it not separating we’ve found to be true. Though a bit sweet for our liking, the nutty, smooth flavor is pretty good. Given all that, we rate this peanut butter at 83 out of 100. Get rid of the palm oil and sugar, and our rating would rise by at least 13 points.
Where to Buy Jiff Natural Creamy Peanut Butter Spread
This Jif product is easily spotted in its clear plastic jar and dark brown lid, and the label which features the red, blue, green, and white Jif logo and light brown background, at most any food store or convenience shop, big or small, including Walmart, Kroger, Giant Eagle, Giant, and Super Fresh. Online vendors include Amazon, eBay, and