What Makes MaraNatha Natural Peanut Butter One Of The Worst Brands Available?

Unlike the Jifs and Skippys of the world, natural peanut butter doesn't usually conjure up nostalgic memories of what you ate as a child. If you've made the switch from sweetened, spreadable peanut butter to its more savory and less shelf-stable counterpart, it was likely due to your evolving palate and interest in ingesting healthier foods, rather than any sort of brand loyalty. Thankfully, for those of us who stand baffled before a wall of natural peanut butter brands, Chowhound writer Sarah Moore taste tested and ranked a bunch of natural peanut butters to tell us which variety we should be loyal to and which we should leave on the shelf.

Relying on a sensible criteria of taste, creaminess, spreadability, and standalone eatability, Moore powered through 10 commonly available brands of natural peanut butters. However, while noting if a peanut butter tastes good or spreads well is simple, defining if a peanut butter is "natural" is less so. As she notes, the FDA doesn't regulate "natural" as a label, apart from the fact that it can't contain any artificial ingredients. Moore narrowed the focus to her own natural parameters: A natural peanut butter must be made from peanuts alone without added sweeteners or palm oil, though salt and peanut oil are allowed.

With this robust rubric in hand, one natural peanut butter fell well short of the mark: MaraNatha Organic Crunchy Peanut Butter. MaraNatha lost points across price, taste, texture, and spreadability, and when Moore questioned whether she would deign to eat it on its own? Reader, she wouldn't. But that doesn't mean the brand is worth writing off altogether.

As Sarah Moore worked through her rankings, she made a few important caveats. For instance, she tried one type of natural peanut butter per brand — and in MaraNatha's case, it was crunchy. She also came to the realization that tasting natural peanut butters without any sweetener was a whole different ball game, one most consumers would not necessarily be compelled to seek out. If you're looking for absolutely zero sugar, you've found your best bet with Woodstock Organic Smooth Peanut Butter, her top pick. But if zero sugar isn't your goal, you may want to put MaraNatha back on the table.

As Moore notes, MaraNatha makes plenty of spreads that would rank highly on a list with different parameters. Unfortunately, the spreads that taste best do have added sugar and palm oil. In fact, when she tried MaraNatha's creamy peanut butter spread in her ranking of all peanut butter brands with no natural parameters, she preferred it over Justin's Creamy Peanut Butter Spread and recommended it as a buy based on its flavor.

Just like the FDA, you might decide to police your own "natural" definition more loosely. Give Woodstock's totally unsweetened version a try, or opt for a slightly sweeter spread to improve your next peanut butter and jelly sandwich. And if you're a fan of a different type of nut butter, say, one made from almonds, MaraNatha's other product line might pique your interest.