I am often amused by all the manufacturers who put "All natural ingredients" on their products. Excuse me, but poison ivy is a natural ingredient. Second, if the ingredients have been processed, are they really natural anymore?
We try to eat mostly fresh, unprocessed food. Exceptions include yogurt, maple syrup, and meat, fish, and poultry. One of our favorite snacks is about as-natural-as-you-can-get peanut butter – unsalted roasted peanuts that we put through a store grinder ourselves. Almost every afternoon I scoop a big glob out of the jar with a tablespoon. Nibble, nibble, lick, lick, until the spoon is almost clean enough to go back into the drawer.
Unfortunately, this peanut butter is a bit too popular, and the peanuts are often back ordered. I had this problem last weekend. I didn't want to do without my peanut butter and checked the peanut butter in jars. I selected one that was labeled "organic no stir peanut butter".
I didn't read the ingredient list until I got home – organic dry roasted peanuts, organic palm oil, organic unrefined cane sugar, sea salt. Palm oil? Sugar? Salt? I don't need these.
I debated taking the peanut butter back or donating it to a food shelf. But snack time rolled around and I had to have my peanut butter. Hm! This is kind of creamy and sweet, and it has bigger chunks than the self-ground. It is a bit salty, but not as salty as the pretzels I snack on. I could get to like this stuff. It is certainly better than the nationally-branded peanut butters with overdoses of sugar, salt, and other unneeded stuff.
But, I'll be strong and go back to the really all-natural peanut butter as soon as we've finished the jar. Besides, the peanut butter in a jar costs about two dollars a pound more.
