Peanut butter so good, it deserves a blog post

Ok, I am no food writer. And typically I find food posts pretty boring unless they have some sort of recipe that is perfectly healthy and I plan to make myself. But typically I could care less what you eat for dinner, so I really don’t tell you about what I’m eating.

That’s how good this peanut butter is.

So, here’s the deal. When I was in Phoenix, Anil introduced me to The Abs Diet for Women (he was doing the mens’ version.) Borders was closing by his house, so we picked up my book for about $8. I had been doing Joy Bauer’s Your Inner Skinny before I fainted, and was loving it, so I was happy to have a good eating plan to follow once again (I’d been on a liquid diet since smashing my face into a parking lot. Plus lack of energy makes things like cooking very difficult, so even when I could eat solid food, it was hard to do meal planning.) I know I said no food blogs, but look out for a post in the future about both of these diets – they are wonderful, and I’m learning that weight loss/health/etc. is so much more nutrition than even exercise. As much as running and stuff is great, eating fruits and veggies and all that other good stuff really goes so far in getting a healthy, hot body that will carry you through a long life. A good thing!

I digress. So, I’m in Phoenix, and Anil tells me about this awesome peanut butter he found – called Krema Natural No Salt Added Peanut Butter. I’d never heard of this brand but I liked the no salt added part. I know the doctors told me to get more sodium in my diet, but I’m still on the lookout for a healthy balance – I feel like there is so much sodium in so many foods already, so I like to cut it when I can (I know, I know, I should listen to the doctors. But I want to be careful not to go from one extreme to the other!)

So, I tried this peanut butter. And it was literally the best peanut butter I’ve ever tasted. Literally (imagine this word spoken with Rob Lowe’s voice.) I believe I had it drizzled over a pink lady apple the first time. And it was so smooth and creamy. It almost seemed like a sauce more than it seemed like a spread. I’ve had a lot of natural peanut butters, and sometimes they are thick and hard to spread, and not wet enough, if that makes sense. This was none of those things. If you’d told me it was loaded with sugars and designed to be an ice cream topping, I’d have believed you – that’s how good it was.

But, it’s not loaded up with sugar or salt or anything. In fact, the peanut butter contains one ingredient: Peanuts. Seriously.

I found this out when I got home and started looking for it online. I discovered that Krema is actually the oldest peanut butter manufacturer in the country. It was even featured on the Today show for being a healthy peanut butter. And maybe the reason I’d never heard of it is because it’s distributed on the West Coast. BUT – they make an East Coast version too – same peanut butter, different name. This one is called Crazy Richard’s. Way cooler name than Krema, am I right?

I was excited until I learned that Crazy Richard’s is not sold in the Carolinas (per their web site.) So, I was resigned to buying it online (not bad, but their smallest package is about $30. Do you know how long it would take me to eat $30 worth of peanut butter?) or to beg Anil to ship or bring me some. Which I promptly did, and he agreed since he understands how good it is.

So, imagine my surprise last week when I was at Earth Fare with Jeff. He asked me “What is that peanut butter called you like again?” and I told him, but then I told him it’s not sold in the Carolinas so it’s not here. He disappeared down the peanut butter aisle anyway. I continued shopping but eventually made my way down there and he was standing in front of the peanut butter shelf, staring at none other than Crazy Richard’s brand peanut butter!

“Creamy or crunchy?” he asked.

“Both!” I replied. I’d had the creamy at Anil’s, and I was curious to try the crunchy too.

But Jeff looked at the expiration dates to see if I could, indeed, have both. And all of the creamies were expired! Some of the crunchies too! I was bummed, but grabbed a crunchy that had a good shelf life (expires December 2102.)

I texted Anil to tell him I’d found it, but also to tell him why I couldn’t have creamy. He texted back “What kind of grocery store are you at that sells expired peanut butter?” Crazy thing is, if you know Earth Fare, you know it’s arguably the best grocery store in Charlotte. It’s very odd that the would sell expired peanut butter!

Got home, and the crunchy is absolutely delicious too. And I decided to contact Earth Fare – I wanted to let them know that not only was their PB expired, but that I absolutely love it and want more. The last thing I wanted them to do was cancel their order if people weren’t buying it! So I emailed them. And got a response back this morning – “We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for bringing this to our attention. The out of date product has been removed from the shelf and re-ordered. Unfortunately the distributor for that product only delivers twice a week and the earliest it will be back in stock is next Tuesday. Again we apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your business. Rob Watts / Grocery Manager”

No problem, Rob. I think I can wait till next Tuesday!

[Update: I found this nutrition scoring info on their blog, found it very interesting!]