I’ve tried several kinds of peanut butter, including most options available at the Grocery Outlet, and the organic crunchy peanut butter from Once Again is my top choice. For one thing, I prefer my peanut butter to be organic, for reasons I’ll get into below. Also, I like my PB crunchy, made from just one or two ingredients, and ideally packaged in a glass jar (which we’ll also discuss later).
Once Again peanut butter is actually a delight when you first open it. All the largest chunks of peanut have risen to the top, forming a layer of nutty goodness, glistening in their own oil and welcoming you like old friends. Yes, I know I’m easily entertained! I often use that first dollop of peanut butter, with extra oil and crunchy bits to go with my noodles, such as the A-Sha noodles that I’ve been enjoying lately. (I also add veggies to this dish to round it out – I’m not a monster!).
Something to bear in mind: good peanut butter, made from only peanuts and perhaps salt, will separate on storage and require stirring. Additives like palm oil or hydrogenated oil are required to make the bestselling “no stir” peanut butters that don’t separate out. Stick to products made from one or two ingredients (peanuts, salt) as these other additives only compromise the health and environmental benefits of peanut butter.
So what’s good about the Once Again product? Well, it scores high for both taste and texture for me. Importantly, it tastes fresh and (being a microbiologist) I’m not risking peanut butter that might have been made from old moldy peanuts – who wants that?!
Why support organic peanut butter?
I have a few reasons for supporting organic peanut butter. First, the obvious – I like to support organic agriculture in general because it’s better for the planet. If you’re not convinced about that, please check out the GSP post on why you should support organic.
Second, with peanut butter I feel that choosing organic is important from a health perspective. Peanuts tend to be grown in the same territory as tobacco (at least in the US) so choosing organic ensures the peanuts weren’t grown on pesticide-laden land that was rotated out of tobacco.
Third, peanut plants (or a stored peanut harvest) are prone to fungal infection posing a risk of contamination with aflatoxins. My feeling is that organic farmers don’t have the luxury of leaving their harvested crop sitting around for long, while conventional farms can fumigate their nuts with fungicides if they’re getting a bit moldy.
Megan at Eat Beautiful sent some peanut butter samples for testing and found that Jif brand peanut butter contained modest levels of aflatoxin (6 µg/kg) while levels in organic PB (from Trader Joe’s) were below the limit of detection.
Maybe it comes down to choosing a brand that you trust from a company that tests extensively for aflatoxins. Once Again tests for Aflatoxin twice – initially on purchased peanuts and then again on the final peanut butter. MaraNatha peanut butter also looks like a good choice, using state of the art climate control to ensure that their nut butters are “virtually aflatoxin free.”
Once Again peanut butter: ingredients and nutrition facts
Ingredients: Organic Peanuts
The full description of this single ingredient is actually this: dry roasted blanched organic peanuts. I bought the unsalted version and didn’t actually notice this when I tasted it – which is impressive as I’m a salt fiend. I think I’ll actually buy the unsalted version on purpose in future!
I do like peanut butter for its nutritional content. A 30 g serving of this peanut butter provides 8 grams of protein – it’s actually higher in protein than beef, at almost 27%. It has a high fat content, of course, and is pretty low in carbs, containing 2 g sugars and 2 g fiber.
Peanut butter is something I wonder about, nutritionally as I’ve been eating more of it while reducing the amount of dairy in my diet. I had this idea that it might make you fat, but that’s not really true. It might apply to a diet of PB&J on white bread, but PB on its own appears to be good for you. Let’s take a lookie-loo!
Is peanut butter healthy?
I’ve spent some time looked at various sources of info on peanut butter and health: Reddit, Quora, St. Vincents, WebMD, and Harvard, to name a few. More importantly, I looked at peer-reviewed papers like this one which looked at nutritional content.
Since peanuts are legumes, they have higher protein content compared to other nuts, with levels comparable to beans
Besides being a great source of protein peanut butter is also a good content of copper, magnesium, manganese, and other essential minerals. Looking at their impact on longevity, these researchers made a pretty startling claim for peanuts:
Peanut consumption was associated with decreased total mortality, particularly cardiovascular mortality – i.e., 17-21% reduction in total mortality, and 23-38% reduction in cardiovascular mortality. – Vanderbilt Health News
That was the most optimistic claim, so perhaps don’t take it to the bank. I found this review on the health impact of nuts useful as it addresses tree nuts, peanuts, and peanut butter separately. Overall, I don’t see any bad news about PB. Just look out for a brand from a company that’s careful about aflatoxins.
Peanut butter: plastic or glass?
When it comes to peanut butter, should we favor products package in plastic or glass jars? The main arguments for plastic are that the weight is lighter, reducing the transportation footprint a little, and breakages are less common than with glass. The main argument for glass is that it really is recyclable and is probably better from a health perspective.
Here’s a quick note on that last point, the health perspective. Oils or oily foods (like peanut butter), being hydrophobic, may interact with plastic and could pick up microplastics or embedded chemicals like plasticizers. Another downside of plastic is that it does not protect oils from oxidation as well as glass jars do.
If your vegetable oils or peanut butter sit around for months at room temperature then consider products packaged in glass rather than plastic. Also consider glass if you’d like to reduce your reliance on plastics and support packaging that’s actually circular.
Ethical rating for Once Again peanut butter
Here’s a summary of how I feel about the social and environmental impact of Once Again peanut butter, which I’m scoring 5/5 Green Stars.
- It’s a high-protein food made from one of the most sustainable protein sources – a legume.
- It’s an organic product, supporting a form of agriculture that’s just better long-term.
- Once Again is a 100% employee-owned company that’s democratically managed. The company reports a 7:1 pay ratio of highest to lowest paid employees.
- Sourcing is validated by third party organizations, SedEx and How Good, which examines ingredient supply chain and environmental footprints, respectively.
- Once Again helped establish a sesame seed cooperative in Nicaragua that it still supports as a customer.
- 100% of electricity use is offset by solar credits. Food waste is sent to farms when possible and any that can’t be used as feed is sent to anaerobic digesters for biogas production.
- Glass jars are made with recycled glass, meeting the highest standards for post-consumer recycled content in the US. The glass supplier also avoids chrome or heavy metals in its furnace and uses a special gas mix to avoid production of the greenhouse gases (NOx) that come from firing with nitrogen-rich air.
- Once Again communicates some of the most helpful and meaningful information on sustainability and impact that I’ve seen in a while.
Summary scores (out of 5) for Once Again peanut butter:
- 5 gold stars for quality and value
- 5 green stars for social and environmental impact
Congrats to Once Again! It has been a little while since I awarded a perfect score of 5/5 Green Stars 🙂
Join the Green Stars Project!
Join the movement to hold corporations accountable (and recognize those with more positive impacts) by including a Green Stars rating when you review a product or business. Also, check out my sister site, The Green Stars Project, for a wider discussion on ethical consumption and social/environmental issues.
Here are a few GSP articles relevant to this post:
Grocery Outlet Ethical Bargains 
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