America’s Worst Peanut Butter Brands are Sold in Montana

Peanut butter sandwiches are equally satisfying for kids and adults.

At our house, we love peanut butter sandwiches. They're easy enough that a child can make them. The simple combo of three basic ingredients (soft, fresh bread, peanut butter, and jam or jelly) simply tastes great together. Perhaps you mix it up occasionally and make a PB & Honey instead of a PBJ, or you'll try to sneak some fruit into your sandwich with sliced bananas.

So good, but perhaps not so healthy.

Natural, unroasted peanuts are relatively healthy. These protein-packed legumes are full of good stuff your body needs. Healthline.com wrote,

Peanuts provide protein, vitamins, minerals, and antioxidants. They may have other health benefits, including promoting fullness and helping protect against heart disease.

"So peanut butter is healthy, right?" Eh, not so fast. Most big-brand peanut butter is loaded with extra sugar, saturated fats, and other additives that deduct any health benefits found in the respected peanut.

Wall St 24/7 recently ranked the 13 least-healthy brands of peanut butter. Almost all of them are sold on grocery store shelves across Montana. Here are the top three least healthy peanut butter brands to avoid in Montana. 

#3 Worst Peanut Butter - Great Value Creamy

Yeah, Great Value is usually a value price-wise, but this bargain peanut butter is one of the worst. Manufactured by conglomerate ConAgra and sold at Walmart everywhere, this one is full of added sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil, and salt.

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#2 Worst Peanut Butter - Reese's Creamy

When peanut butter is co-branded with a sugar-loaded candy, is there any doubt that you're basically eating spreadable candy? Reese's Creamy peanut butter is loaded with extras. Extra sugar, check. Hydrogenated fats, you bet. They also add molasses for extra sweetness and cornstarch to bulk up the product.

#1 Worst Peanut Butter - Smucker's Goober Grape

This abomination of a food product makes zero health claims on its labeling, not even a blip about "a great source of protein" because there is very little to brag about when it comes to healthiness here. Goober Grape's list of questionable ingredients includes,

Grape juice, high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, dextrose, distilled monoglycerides, salt, pectin, citric acid, potassium sorbate (preservative), sodium citrate.

Potassium sorbate is heavily regulated in Europe because it is a known genotoxic, believed to cause DNA or chromosomal damage.

Stick to natural brands.

The healthiest kinds of peanut butter are those with no added sugar and short ingredient labels that contain little more than peanut butter and salt. These all-natural brands can sometimes separate when sitting on the shelf. While unsightly, a quick stir makes everything better. The brand shown above has one ingredient... peanuts.