More peanut butter trials

There are two ongoing food sagas in my life: The search for decent pizza, and for peanut butter I like (not together…). I still have no real solution to the pizza issue, apart from maybe experimenting making them myself—maybe. It turns out, thought, that peanut butter keeps presenting challenges for me, even if they’re sometimes self-selected. It happens.

This time, my peanut butter search was about trying a different variety of the brand I use, but it was an experiment, nevertheless. Maybe not a wise one?

First, though, a recap. Back in 2018, I talked about my search for a peanut butter, and, at the time sodium content was a major consideration, so I eventually settled on “Pic’s No Salt Added Peanut Butter” (I purchased all brands mentioned in this post myself at normal retail prices; this post is not sponsored). After Nigel died, I decided I liked the brand he liked, “Woolworth’s Select American Style Peanut Butter”, which I also mentioned in that 2018 post. This was not to last.

It turned out that Countdown (now called Woolworths) discontinued the peanut butter Nigel liked, and in 2023 I wrote about searching for a replacement. I briefly tried an American brand I used to eat when I was a kid groing up in the USA, but 30-odd years later, I couldn’t stop thinking about all the weird additives in it. So, I ended up adopting the regular version of Pic’s peanut butter (which has salt added).

A few months later, in April 2024, I tried the large size of the Pic’s peanut butter so it would last longer, but that, too, was problematic. As I said in an Update Post at the very end of last year:

The jar lasted much longer than the ordinary (small) jar I’d been buying, but it lasted a bit too long—months, I think. The problem was that by the end, the peanut butter at the bottom of the jar was too hard to spread, probably because I didn’t properly stir it when I opened it. At any rate, that wasn’t what I wanted, so I’ve gone back to the small jar I’d been using.

And now this saga is up tp date. So: I was in the supermarket recently, and I noticed the squeeze bottle of Pic’s (photo above), and I was intrigued. I thought that maybe I could shake the bottle to re-mix the oil into it, meaning I could keep it at room temperature, which would make it easier to spread. The first time I opened the bottle and removed the seal, I immediately noticed that there was a peanut butter plug at the bottle mouth—because it had separated. So, the first thing I had to do was manually stir the contents, just like always, before squirting some out.

The oil separates at room temperature.

Since then, I’ve tried shaking the bottle and it seems to work as I expected, but it’s a little odd to have squiggles of peanut butter on my bread, Still, I just spread that with a knife and it was like “normal”. So, maybe its a good choice? Yeah, well…

I was hesitant to buy it because the bottle may be recycled (I’m sceptical about that, a subject in itself), but the red top to the bottle absolutely is not. The jar I normally buy is clear glass (and desirable for recycling), and the lid is metal (which may not be recycled—part of that subject in itself again…). However, the jars are also useful for reuse, and I quite like the black star on the red lid), so I’ve re-purposed several into small storage jars, as I have with so many others (hmmm, that, too, is a subject in itself—why am I making more work for myself?!).

This experiment had mixed result. The bottle seems to work as expected, and since I spread the peanut butter, anyway, the squiggle business isn’t bad. Actually, the fact it’s easy to spread is a very good thing. It’s the waste—specifically the fact the top isn’t recyclable—that bothers me.

I guess it’ll come down to whether, all things considered, I think it’s good value for money. At the moment, the ordinary price per 100g is the same for both options, and the squeezy bottle holds a bit more. However, I only buy peanut butter when it’s on special because Pic’s is probably a “premium” brand, and so, more expensive per 100g than mass-produced brands. I don’t know if the squeezy bottle will be on special as the jar version often is.

I have a few more servings to go before I get through the bottle, so my final decision is some while away yet, but if I was to bet, it would be that I’ll go back the glass jar. I guess I’ll have ot make more work for myself: Another Update post.