Peanut butter

Many brands of peanut butter have things besides peanuts in them (salt, sugar, preservatives). Not to mention that they are often packaged in plastic (which are probably leaking chemicals into your food!).

Update: Chattanooga has a great new grocery store called Gaining Ground Grocery that has a peanut butter grinder. Sadly, EarthFare has closed 😦

Good news, Both EarthFare and Whole Foods in Chattanooga have peanut grinders where you can fill your own container with nothing but ground up peanuts. At $2.99/lb, it is also much less expensive than packaged natural peanut butter.

And, since its freshly ground, you don’t get that layer of oil on the top that is such a pain to mix back in.

Once you’ve tasted this peanut butter, you won’t want other peanut butter anymore! It is rich, creamy, and peanuty. Also, you are being a good steward of our world by creating one less thing that has to be recycled or tossed.

Here is how you do it:

1. Get a clean glass jar (I use leftover honey jars).
2. Bring it to the cashier the first time you use it and tell them you need the tare weight. They will weigh it for you. Bring along a sharpie and write the weight on the lid. Now that you have its weight, you will never need to do this step again.

   

3. Go to the bulk section and write the item number on the top of the lid. Then, fill the jar with peanut butter! It’s easy to fill, here is a video of my 3 year old doing it!
4. When you check out, the cashier will subtract the weight of your jar from the total weight.

They have almond butter too. Same process.

I recommend buying at EarthFare instead of Whole Foods because the space to fit your container under the grinder is too small at Whole Foods. It would work if your jar was short and stout, but my repurposed honey jars are too tall.

And yes, I have stopped by Whole Foods before to fill a sippy cup with peanut butter because it was the only thing I had and we were out of peanut butter at home 🙂