As part of a recent health kick, I’ve started eating a lot of Smucker’s Natural Peanut Butter. Although natural peanut butter has a decent amout of fat, its low in saturated fat and contains absolutely no trans fat, so its basically all mono and poly fats (the good kind). It also has no cholesterol and is high in protein and fiber. But I digress — The reason I’m bringing it up here is to discuss the poor usability of the packaging of this product (and basically all natural peanut butter products).

For the unfamiliar, one must stir natural peanut butter before eating it, as the oil naturally seperates to create a messy goup. It is, however, virtually impossible to stir thick peanut butter without spilling it all over the outside of the jar and the counter. (Come to think of it, I have a similar problem with sesame tahini that I use to make hummus.) I’ve tried keeping the jar upside down for a day or two, pouring out the oil before stirring and then slowly bringing it back in, and even taking a bunch of the PB out into another container before stirring, but each time I’ve ended up with a total mess. I’ve tried to stir with a knife, a spoon and a wooden spoon, but still ended up greasy. I’ve also learned that if it isn’t stirred correctly the first time, the PB gets extremely dry by the end of the jar.

So, how can this be improved? Skippy did just release a “non-stir” natural PB, but it contains added sugars and oil so I’ve decided to stay away from that. I do think that a larger jar (or less PB) would help a lot — if there was some space between the top of the contents and the top of the jar, the problem would be alleviated greatly. (I’m sure, however, that this would cost the producers more money and is thus unlikely to happen.) Perhaps there is a specialized implement that could be created to stir the PB effectively? I’d buy it.

Anyone else have any great ideas? In the meantime I’m going to go have a snack…