OK, on most bobybuilding discussion boards, whenever peanut butter is mentioned there are always a bunch of comments about making sure it is natural peanut butter. I was examining nutrition info labels at the grocery store yesterday and I did not see any real difference in cal, sodium, fat, protein of natural vs regular peanut butter.

What am I overlooking? Aside from price, why is natural a better choice?

Not sure bro. I havent had Peanut butter in awhile. I switched to Almond butter about a year ago, and I eat it everyday. I love the stuff. That and beef jerky are my snacks.

The biggest is natural has no added sugars. All the peanut oil in natty PB is natural and has no addiditives or preservatives. Its just plain old peanuts grinded down to PB.

If you compare the labels, look for Partially Hydrogenated Oils. This is the biggest difference in Natural vs. Regular PB. Natural peanut butters do not contain partially hydrogenated oils, a.k.a Trans Fat.

You have to look in the ingredient list for it, because if you look at the label to see the percentage of Trans Fat in regular peanut butter you will see 0. The reason is that the FDA proposed a rule that indicated that trans fat amounts of less than .5g cannot be accurately measured and will be listed on the label as 0. Personally I think that is misleading and bullshit if you ask me. I don't care how insignificant it might be, consumers should see a percentage regardless, because most consumers don't read the ingredient labels, and wouldn't know that partially hydrogenated oils is Trans Fat.

So, hypothetically what if I wanted to eat half a jar of peanut butter because the label says Trans Fat 0? Now, I got a whole lot of insignificant Trans Fat that adds up to more than significant, lol.

So, typically regular peanut buter contains less then 1% of trans fat, which helps keep the oil from seperating, makes it creamer, and dramatically increases the shelf life.

Sorry just my two cents

Thanks for the detailed explanation. That makes sense to me!