What Is Clean Peanut Butter And How To Make It
What is clean peanut butter? Let’s take a closer look…
I get a lot of questions from people who are new to clean eating, wanting to know what constitutes a peanut butter that is clean.
As with all labeled food products, you have to take two things into account when deciding if something is clean.
1) How much is it processed and altered from it’s original state?
2) What is in the ingredient list? (Read more on how to read food labels for clean eating here.)
Peanut Butter Ingredients
The truth is, figuring out if a particular peanut butter is clean is pretty simple. Finding a clean peanut butter at the store can be a little more difficult. But not impossible!!
This is the actual ingredient list from a jar of NOT-SO-CLEAN peanut butter:
The only thing that comes to mind when reading this is, “WHY???“
Here is the actual ingredient list from a jar of CLEAN peanut butter:
See the difference?
I would NEVER go to the store to buy some copper sulfate to cook with at home. But peanuts… I would definitely buy those. Keep in mind that a few brands out there have some added salt. Unless you must restrict your salt intake specifically, this does not make the peanut butter unclean. Salt in healthy amounts is clean and necessary.
So what are some some good peanut butter brands that are clean?
- Trader Joe’s Organic Peanut Butter
- Adam’s Peanut Butter
- MaraNatha
- 365 (Whole Foods store brand)
- Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter – Creamy
- Brad’s Organic Peanut Butter (Costco)
- Teddie Old Fashioned All Natural Peanut Butter
And if you can’t find any of those at your local super market and don’t want to order any online, here’s how to make your own at home. It’s quick and easy, and you just cannot get any cleaner than homemade!
Some sites say that some ‘dry roasted’ processes use MSG. If a peanut butter uses ‘dry roasted’ peanuts how do you know if there is MSG or not? [Sure, I know they SHOULD put it on the label but trusting big business is not my strong point.]
Zeak – As far as I know, MSG is required to be labeled by law. If yo have a source for information that says different, I’d love to take a look.
Koeze Company, Grand Rapids, MI makes a natural peanut butter, peanuts and sea salt is all listed. And it tastes awesome!
Gayle – Thanks for sharing that! 😀
hello. thank you for all your tips. I buy a ‘Natural’ peanut butter which ingredients are peanuts and olive oil. Is that ok? i also found another one which contains 99% peanuts and a preservative E471. Which one is best between those two?
thank you!
Annabelle – if those are the only ingredients listed, then the one with olive oil is best.
Publix has a store brand that only has peanuts as the ingredient
Tish – Good to know! 🙂