I found this product produced by Walden Farms this morning and must say it piqued my interest. Could it be the best thing since sliced bread? Or, could it be a total abomination masquerading as peanut butter…
Sugar Free, Calorie Free, and Fat Free!
Dieters dream, maybe?
Well, the spread in the picture looks a lot like actual peanut butter. However, you can also see that the contents in the jar looks more like canned turkey gravy. I must say that in itself was a red flag to me when I took the product off of the grocery store shelf. But, I pressed on and was going to take one for the team and try it anyhow. If it turned out bad, I was only out $5.00…
As you can clearly see, this product does not look like what is spread on the bread on the label. This is quite a bit misleading on the part of Walden Farms I would say. But, I pressed on with trying this for the review. Although I was already considering chucking the jar into the trash.
Upon my intitial sniff test, this whipped peanut spread did somewhat resemble the odor of peanut butter. However, as you can see, it looks like canned turkey gravy with a bit of a slimy texture to it.
This clearly does not look anything close to the label picture, now does it?
But, on with the test…
The texture already had me somewhat grossed out, but I have eaten cold military chow while out in the field that was much worse.
I topped this slice of Sara Lee’s 45 calorie per slice Delightful White Bread, closed my eyes and took a bite. I did this while standing next to my kitchen trash can as I thought it was going to be awful, but to my surprise, it wasn’t too bad. That is, if the slimy texture does not make you gag.
Getting past the texture, I found this product by Walden Farms did not actually taste too bad. It was not too sweet, and had a flavor that was close to peanut butter when coupled with bread. You do need to know, that while this tasted decent enough with bread, it is nothing you want to eat from a spoon with nothing else. Without the bread, I thought it had a little bitterness to it,
I like adding powdered peanut butter to my chocolate protein drinks. So, I decided to mix two tablesoons into a shake and found that it mixed well, and gave the chocolate casein protein shake mix I use a nice flavor. I was pleasantly surprised by this. For this reason alone, I will finish off the jar rather letting it go to waste. While it is not really good, it is also not really terrible. You may, or may not like it. That is all according to personal tastes.
As you can see by the nutrition label, there is absolutely no nutritional benefit to eating Walden Farms Whipped Peanut Spread. This would be pretty much an equal counterpart to non-calorie water mix ins. It gives taste and nothing more.
That ingredient list almost looks scary to me, except I do know there is nothing harmful in this Walden Farms product. Afterall, they do have a pretty good reputation for their products.
As an afterthought, since Walden Farms Whipped Peanut Spread resembles canned turkey gravy, it might be pretty decent served warm on a plate and sopped up with a dinner roll. Just like you might do at a Thanksgiving or Christmas meal.