The secret world of nut butters: it’s more than peanuts

When exams are bearing down and the munchies kick in at 3 a.m., if it’s between ice cream and peanut butter, I’m going for the peanut butter.

Creamy, crunchy and tinged with kindergarten nostalgia, peanut butter is a great food for traveling and snacking. But just as your world was rocked when you discovered cheese beyond Kraft Singles, the world of peanut butter is far more delicious and decadent than a boring bottle of Jif.

Best of all? Despite what the nutritional label might tell you, peanut butter isn’t fattening. Well, it’s only fattening if you eat too much of it, but the fats in peanut butter are largely monosaturated, which are good for cardiovascular health. Also, peanut butter has high amounts of vitamin E, niacin and antioxidants, making it a disease-fighting machine on bread, a spoon or a piece of celery. And don’t waste your time with reduced fat peanut butter — it’s devoid of good fats and substituted with sugary fillers instead.

Don’t stockpile the Skippy, though. These nice peanut butter facts don’t apply to most of the mass-produced stuff on the supermarket shelves. Like most regular commercial peanut butters, Skippy is loaded with preservatives and sugar.

For ultimate peanut butter effectiveness, go natural instead.

Natural peanut butters are usually only made with salt and peanuts. Sometimes they contain palm oil stabilizers, but that’s just to prevent the oil separation you might have noticed when opening a jar of Laura Scudder’s. Stabilizers or not, natural peanut butters have a richer, more roasted taste because the peanuts are put out there front and center.

Though au naturel butters in general cost a little more than their trans-fatty counterparts, the top natural butter for low cost and high taste is Trader Joe’s,

Some recognizable brands have also started making their own natural peanut butter — including Jif and Skippy — but the best is Smucker’s Natural.

Another peanut butter trend popping up in jars across the nation is to incorporate flaxseed into the peanuts. This increases the omega-3 fatty acids and fiber, making the product more healthy than ever. The tastiest of these flax-peanut hybrids is Naturally More, which has created a crunchy little butter with a deliciously sweet, nutty flavor.

Flavored peanut butters are also leaping into popularity. Not all stores carry them, but that’s also slowly changing. The New York-based Peanut Butter and Co. sells peanut butter flavors such as dark chocolate dreams and mighty maple. Naturally Nutty, a smaller, organic brand, has an award-winning flavor known as Butter Toffee. Sunland Peanut Butter, however, takes the concept and blows it wide open with sweet, savory and fruity flavors. A few standouts of its repertoire are caramel, raspberry and hickory smoked.

Hickory smoked peanut butter might sound like an extreme, but Katalin Coburn, vice president of Sunland, says it still all starts with the nuts. Sunland only uses Valencia peanuts, which gives its peanut butter a unique flavor and a natural sweetness. Additionally, the dense Valencias are high in antioxidants.

But butter bliss does not end with peanuts. Any nut or seed can be made into a butter, from almonds to hemp seeds. Nutritionally diverse, forgiving of peanut allergies and useful in all sorts of cooking adventures, nut butters can do a lot to beef up your pantry.

Standouts include almond butter, which is the closest alternative to peanut butter. Almonds are one of the most nutritious nuts, rich in healthy fats, potassium and magnesium. Spread almond butter on toast or stir it into oatmeal for a rich, hearty breakfast. Trader Joe’s makes an excellent almond butter that is blessedly cheap. Other good brands are MaraNatha, found in most supermarkets, and Barney Butter, which is made nearby in Fresno, Calif.

Cashew butter — another alternative — is light, sweet and creamy. It tastes better on things than straight from the jar — in fact, it’s the perfect base for no-bake goods such as icebox cookies. Cashews are also lower in fat than most nuts and contain high levels of copper, an essential mineral. MaraNatha makes the most accessible brand, but it’s cheaper to just dump a bunch of cashews in a blender with a splash of milk or water and give it a whirl.

Sesame seed butter, better known as tahini, is what gives your hummus that savory kick. Beyond baba ganoush, however, tahini tastes great drizzled on apples and berries or used as part of a salad dressing. For the best tahini, head to Israel, but if you’re stuck in the United States, Joyva and Whole Foods market’s house brand are dependable.

Sunflower seed butter is a delectable mix of sweet and savory. Equally delicious on toast or vegetable crudités, sunflower butter adds variety to any pantry. Packed with selenium, zinc and iron, it’s also great for you. The best brand, hands down, is SunButter.

Hemp seed butter is for nutty connoisseurs — it tastes a little bit like flax-covered walnuts and can go sweet or savory depending on what it’s served with. Hemp seeds are also a nutritional powerhouse of omega-3s and 6s with oodles of protein and antioxidants. Manitoba Harvest, a Canadian-based hemp company, makes an especially tasty butter.

So embrace traditional peanut butter and its many delicious cousins. They are great for your heart and taste buds, fit into any dorm room and can compliment a hundred different recipes. And, of course, when homesickness kicks in, there’s always the good old PB&J.

Mimi Honeycutt is a sophomore majoring in print journalism. Her column “Gingersnaps” runs Wednesdays.