13 Of The Unhealthiest Peanut Butter Brands You Can Buy At The Grocery Store

Peanut butter: creamy or crunchy, spread on bread or baked into cookies, drizzled over oatmeal, spooned into smoothies, or eaten straight from the jar, it is a beloved food for a reason. To be great, one could argue that peanut butter only needs two ingredients: peanuts and salt. In fact, the simplicity of natural peanut butter is what leads many people to consider it a health food. After all, when prepared that way, it is filled with healthy fats, protein, and fiber and low in both sodium and sugar. A superfood, even, so long as you do not have allergies.

However, many popular brands add a little more to their jars than just roasted peanuts and salt. In order to prevent separation, increase their shelf life, and make them more palatable to consumers, most popular peanut butter brands add sugar, oils, and other flavors to stand out from their competitors. What ends up happening, naturally, is that these peanut butter brands become anything but natural. We have compiled some peanut butter brands that can be found in most grocery stores that you might want to think twice about picking up on your next supermarket haul. As always, it is always up to you, and this list is for people who are looking to get some more nutrition out of their peanut butter intake rather than indulgence.

Jif has been a childhood favorite since 1958 when it first appeared on grocery store shelves. It has been a longstanding staple of the afternoon lunch box and an ingredient in many batches of homemade peanut butter cookies, which is probably why it is managed to convince us that it is a healthy option. Unfortunately, the Jif Peanut Butter and Chocolate Flavored Spread is not such a great choice for little tummies. In all fairness to Jif, though, the brand does acknowledge right on the product page that this spread is "splurge-worthy."

At 200 calories per 2 tablespoon serving, Jif tries to instill a sense of healthfulness in this chocolatey spread by claiming it as having 50% less sugar than the leading hazelnut spread with cocoa. However, this still means it has 10 grams of sugar, with the sweet stuff listed as the second ingredient. The math on that means that your leading hazelnut-cocoa spread has a whopping 21 grams of sugar. Maybe save this one for an occasional treat, or skip it altogether. It's up to you.

Do not let the top hat, cane, and monocle fool you: While Planters likes to pose as a fancy, high-quality brand that uses only the finest of ingredients, one peek at the brand's peanut butter label might prove otherwise. Cutting the traditional serving size in half for a measly tablespoon, Planters still has 7 grams of fat and lists both molasses and sugar as its combined second ingredient.

As a general rule when it comes to peanut butter, you want the fat to be coming only from the peanuts themselves, as well as the natural oils they contain. Planters Smooth Peanut Butter uses peanuts as well as hydrogenated vegetable oil, which it lists as a blend of cottonseed, soybean, and/or rapeseed oil. Not the worst oils for human consumption, but also not entirely necessary, either. According to Heathline, these cheaper-to-use oils can increase inflammation, reduce blood sugar control, and decrease heart health. Not exactly a badge of honor for Mr. Peanut.

When you throw around nutritional buzzwords like "organic" or "natural", you can fool a lot of people into thinking that a product is healthier than it really is. Enter: Justin's Honey Peanut Butter. The popular (and pricier) brand that has a comfortable home on grocery store shelves (and Starbucks menus) has a whopping 17 grams of fat, with 3.5 grams being the saturated kind.

Too much saturated fat can contribute to higher levels of bad cholesterol, which can put you at risk for heart disease and stroke. Add to that the 210 calories per 2-tablespoon serving and you are looking at a pretty hefty spread to smear on top of your breakfast toast. While Justin's Honey Peanut Butter is made with overall simple (and pronounceable) ingredients like peanuts, organic cane sugar, and organic honey, it uses palm oil, another source of saturated fat and a commonly used oil that can have detrimental effects on the environment.

When it looks like candy and is marketed to kids, chances are it is probably not the most healthful choice in the world of peanut butter. Smucker's Goober Strawberry cuts out the time it takes to spread both peanut butter and jelly on your sandwich and twists them together for your convenience. But is the convenience coming at a cost?

In all fairness to Smucker's, the serving size on the back of the jar is 3 tablespoons, which is a little more than the average 2 tablespoons recommended by most other brands. Even the fat content (10 grams) and calories (220) is not too egregious when the serving size is considered. In fact, even the 2 grams of saturated fat per serving are far less than Justin's Honey Peanut Butter. It is the sugar that makes this peanut butter a bad choice, with 22 grams of it, including a whole 20 being added sugar. This is likely from the inclusion of high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, and dextrose to get those sweet strawberry stripes.

Jif Creamy Peanut Butter may boast that it has "7 grams of protein per serving" right on the jar, but that splashy badge is probably there to detract customers from the potentially less appetizing numbers on the other side of the label. Although a classic in cupboards across the country, this simple peanut butter is not the greatest when it comes to healthy eating.

Sure, it has 7 grams of protein per 2-tablespoon serving, but what it also has are 190 calories, 16 grams of fat, and 2 grams of added sugar. On the brand's website, Jif understands that this beloved peanut butter choice is perfect for "sandwiches, baking, and spoons," but you might want to hold off on dipping in for a snack. Those added 2 grams of sugar do not seem like much, but if you are digging in for a spoonful or satisfying a craving, they can really add up (in addition to the 16 grams of fat).

B. Happy does not have any illusions that it is going to be used on your morning toast or spread on some crisp celery sticks (although you could do that, and maybe convince yourself that it is a healthy choice). It advertises itself right on the label as a snack mix as well as a peanut butter. That makes sense, considering its Go Lucky Peanut Butter flavor is packed with snacking mix-ins like milk chocolate, toffee, and rice crispies. Not exactly health food, is it?

Unsurprisingly, this flavor is loaded with some pretty staggering numbers: 13 grams of fat –– including four grams of saturated fat –– and 9 grams of added sugar. That means that exactly zero grams of sugar in this tiny jar are naturally occurring –– they are all added in from the sweet milk chocolate, toffee, and rice crispies. All that and it only has a measly 5 grams of protein –– less than the afore-mentioned jar of Jif. Unless you can really control your sweet tooth, we suggest leaving this brand on the shelf. Or using it in your sweet treats.

There are plenty of worse offenders on this list, but Great Value's Creamy Peanut Butter is not getting off scot-free. The budget in-house brand of Walmart stores is a popular one for shoppers who can rely on its availability and affordability, which is partly why they do not deserve to be dunked on too hard in this list.

While the sugar and fat content are not terrible (1 gram of sugar per tablespoon and 8 grams of fat, respectively), it is the ingredients list that gives us pause. Other peanut butter brands that use added sugar will often keep things vague and simply say "sugar," or try and fancy it up with "organic cane sugar" or similar. Great Value, on the other hand, got more specific and informed customers that the sweetener they use is icing sugar. Unfortunately, that brings to mind baked goods and sweet treats –– not what you want when advertising a supposedly healthy food item. Great Value Creamy Peanut Butter also uses palm oil, which we have already stated increases the level of saturated fat and can raise serious environmental concerns. All in all, this is not a totally bad buy, but it is certainly one to be mindful of.

The chances are that when brands add a sweetener or some extra pizzazz to their peanut butter, customers usually pay for it in the nutritional content. Skippy's Roasted Honey Nut Creamy Peanut Butter Spread sounds decadent because it is. With 21% of your daily recommended fat intake per 200-calorie serving, the additional ingredients do not earn Skippy any gold stars. In addition to added peanut oil, Skippy has included hydrogenated vegetable oil in order to prevent separation. This is often why natural peanut butter separates and needs to be stirred before eating or spreading.

With the word "honey" right in the name, it is not surprising that honey is also in the ingredients list. Actually, we would be worried if it was absent in there. What is surprising is that, in addition to the natural sweet stuff, Skippy has chosen to triple their saccharine levels with the addition of molasses and sugar. While a serving only contains 3 grams of sugar, 2 of those grams are added sugar, which feels unnecessary to us.

Chocolate and peanut butter are a classic duo, and while they are a hit at dessert, that is also probably where this flavor from Peanut Butter & Company should stay, rather than becoming part of your morning meal. The addition of cane sugar, cocoa butter, and palm oil contributes to the 13 grams of fat (including 3 grams of the saturated kind) as well as 6 grams of added sugar.

Again, we see the appearance of palm oil on this list, which the brand explains is to prevent the peanut butter from separating. The protein –– a bare 6 grams –– is also not worth the extra fat and sugar content, especially when competing brands offer more protein for less of both. Peanut Butter & Company likes to tout itself as a brand "on a mission to deliver products that taste good, feel good, and do good." We have no doubt that this product tastes good, but we question whether it will make you feel good after a few spoonfuls. Again, it feels like more of a dessert item.

It is probably not a head-scratcher that a brand mostly known for its decadent candy offerings happens to have an equally decadent peanut butter in its lineup. While this PB may be a great ingredient for cookies (when you know you are getting into something sweet), it may not be the best peanut butter choice for your lunchtime sandwich.

Per 2 tablespoon serving, Reese's Creamy Peanut Butter has 16 grams of fat (including 2.5 grams of saturated fat) and 3 grams of sugar. While it has a respectable 8 grams of protein, that does not make up for its pretty intense list of ingredients. This sweet peanut butter is full of additional ingredients, like sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, molasses, monoglycerides, and cornstarch. Surprisingly, Reese's Creamy Peanut Butter also has a relatively high amount of sodium, too –– 140 milligrams for just 2 tablespoons. Comparatively, natural peanut butters made without salt have 0 grams of sodium. Maybe save this brand for those orange-wrapped Halloween candy indulgences and opt for something with fewer ingredients on your next trip to the grocery store.

As we have already said, combining chocolate and peanut butter makes for an undeniable flavor powerhouse, but it can be at the expense of any nutritional value. Or, at the very least, the combo can offset whatever nutritional value there was. Peanut Butter & Company strikes again with a flavor from the dark side –– dark chocolate, that is.

Similar to the White Chocolate Wonderful, Dark Chocolatey Dreams is loaded with added sugar, with 6 extra grams of the total 7 grams per 2-tablespoon serving. Many of us already know that there are plenty of risks associated with eating too much sugar, but the short list includes: weight gain, heart disease, diabetes, dental issues, and kidney disease. For those reasons, it is important to consider that a single serving of Peanut Butter & Company's Dark Chocolatey Dreams has 12% of your daily recommended sugar intake –– and chances are you are spreading more than that on a piece of toast. Since this flavor has only a meagre 6 grams of protein per serving anyway, we say ditch it and go for something that offers a little more in the nutrition department if that is what you are looking for.

Peanut butter gets a bad rap for being full of fat. In fact, we have pointed out the high fat content of plenty of brands throughout this article. This reasoning is why so many brands now offer varieties labelled as "reduced fat" or "less fat," which can appeal to health-conscious consumers. Unfortunately, what brands like Skippy lack in fat they make up for in loads of unhealthy additives. In Skippy's Reduced Fat Creamy Peanut Butter Spread, customers will enjoy only 13 grams of fat (and 190 calories) per 2 tablespoon serving, but they will also be getting a lot more other stuff, too.

Rather than simple peanuts and salt, Skippy has decided to include corn syrup solids, sugar, and hydrogenated vegetable oil to make up for it, including 4 grams of added sugar. Many brands turn to sugar as a way to bump up the flavor that is lost when reducing the fat content of certain items. While you may be getting slightly less fat than the standard jar of Skippy, you are also getting way more sugar, too.

Another entry from B. Happy, this small (12-ounce) container packs a major nutritional bomb –– and not in a good way. While 13 grams of fat per 2 tablespoon serving is not too bad (although 3 of those grams are saturated fat), it is the 10 grams of sugar –– including 9 grams of added sugar –– that give this peanut butter spread/snack mix a failing grade.

We are all for chunky peanut butter, but when those chunks take the form of white chocolate, dark chocolate, and dried cranberries, we have to pause a minute (but if that sounds like your dessert dream, carry on). In addition to the honey roasted peanuts (as opposed to the dry-roasted peanuts of many natural PB brands), B. Happy has decided that being happy is the same thing as putting people in a sugar coma. Over 18% of your recommended daily sugar intake is confined to those 2 tiny tablespoons, but the small size of the jar might convince you that you're not really eating that much. We promise: It is more than you think.