Jif Natural Jif creamy peanut butter spread Review

There are many natural nut spreads on the market. As a rule, they have to be refrigerated and, as a rule, they all have to be stirred before you can eat them. They separate, with a layer of oil on top that has to be stirred into the rest. I've always avoided them because of this.

We recently saw this new "Natural Jif" with a blurb on the front that says, "No Need To Stir." We looked on the back and saw there are no preservatives and also no need to refrigerate. Great! So we bought it. Unfortunately, we did not see the little blurb that said, "Minimal oil separation is natural." Frankly, we were caught by the "no need to stir."

Well... There's no need to stir if you don't mind the puddle of oil on top when you open it. At first, there was quite a lot of oil on top, and down below it was very stiff (because all the oil had risen). That first time stirring it up, it was quite a mess. After that, it's not as bad, simply because it gets used every day, and it doesn't have time to separate as much. It's still a pain to have to stir something so thick in a tall narrow container like that. But if you don't stir it, you're going to have very oily peanut butter on top, and the more you use, the stiffer the peanut butter will be, because all the oil will be gone. In short, it's like any other natural nut butter except it doesn't have to be refrigerated.

As far as taste, it's pretty much like the old Jif; maybe a tad sweeter. Definitely a tad thinner at this point; I suspect it's because I don't get it stirred well enough, which means that in time it will be thicker than regular Jif.

For someone who really wants natural nut butter, I say go for this. It doesn't have to be refrigerated, which is a real plus. However, it does contain, in addition to peanuts, sugar, palm oil, salt, and molasses.