In a comment to yesterday’s entry on peanut butter and banana sandwiches, Adrian asks:
The important details! Did you get creamy or crunchy?
Also how does the low fat peanut butter compare to the regular in taste, texture, etc?
As it turns out, I got the creamy variety of Skippy’s Reduced Fat peanut butter (though crunchy is also available). Actually, it’s labeled as “Peanut Spread”, so I'm guessing that it doesn’t meet some legal definition of “peanut butter”. In smaller print, it also says “60% peanuts”. Ordinarily, I’d wonder what the remaining 40% was, but Skippy’s FAQ answers that:
Skippy Reduced Fat peanut butter spread uses maltodextrin (a type of corn starch) to replace some of the fat in peanuts. It also contains soy protein, and mineral supplements in addition to the standard peanut butter ingredients. For additional information on ingredients in Skippy products visit our Nutritional Facts section.
Still this is only a “reduced fat” product, not a low-fat one. After all, a serving of this “reduced fat” peanut butter still has almost as much fat as a Snickers bar (12g vs 14g, respectively). Of course, the peanut butter also has about 100 fewer calories than the Snickers bar (190 vs 280, respectively).
Ok, on to the taste and texture, the important parts. It spreads just like normal peanut butter, and its texture is identical (as far as I can tell). And, the taste is good, too. Of course, I only ate some in the context of a peanut butter and banana sandwich (so maybe I wasn’t getting the full-on peanut effect), but I definitely enjoyed it. That, and I'm not exactly a peanut butter connoisseur, as I probably haven't had real peanut butter in about 5 or 6 years (and, no, Resse’s products don’t count as real peanut butter).
But, all in all, I was very satisfied. And, I’d buy it again. The key here, I think, is that this is only a “reduced fat” product, as opposed to an actual “low fat” product. Due to government food-labeling laws, “low fat” has specific legal meaning (that is, the food must actually be low in fat). But, with “reduced fat”, that merely means that the reduced-fat version has less fat than the full-fat version. So, as is usually the case, reduced-fat foods are healthier, while still tasting good.
Looking over the rest of Skippy’s FAQ, I saw this entry on giving peanut butter to children and infants:
[...] Young children, especially 2 to 3-year olds, can be at risk of choking on foods. When serving peanut butter to young children spread it thinly. For easier eating, peanut butter can also be thinned by mixing with mashed banana, apple sauce or yogurt.
Of course, I have no infants to deal with, but that excerpt did give me an idea that I could use those very techniques to thin my own peanut butter. So, perhaps by adding yogurt to my already reduced-fat peanut butter, I might be able to achieve truly low-fat peanut butter. Perhaps I’ll try a peanut-butter-yogurt-banana sandwich sometime.