I was introduced to the product when someone brought it back from America. For those like me who haven’t heard of it – PB2 is essentially powdered peanut butter, with 85% less fat than regular peanut butter. The fat has been pressed out of  the peanuts in much the same way that flax-seed oil is extracted from flax-seeds; then the peanuts are then powdered.

I decided to give it a go in the kitchen. I like cooking, but I rarely venture of of my comfort zone in the kitchen. There are a whole host of recipes on the manufacturers website here, so I was able to pick one I thought I can make without causing a fire.

So far I have added PB2 to smoothies, made some very simple PB2 chocolate oat cakes, and even used it to make satay chicken. here are my thoughts:

The taste is very hard to pick fault with. The original PB2 tastes exactly the same as smooth peanut butter when you add water to it – very nice. It was the PB2 chocolate with caused the score to drop a bit, as I would want more chocolate taste. It might just be me being picky though, and it certainly was nice!

The oat cake things I made were really nice. However, I think some recipes on Bell Plantation just add PB2 in for the sake of using PB2 though, they don’t all need it. I actually ran out of recipes I wanted to try.On the surface it looks like there are loads of uses for PB2, but in the end i only really added it to milkshakes and oat cakes. The satay chicken was a bit of a mistake because it was too runny, I think satay chicken should be made with crunchy peanut butter, not runny. the lack of ‘crunch’ I think restricts this product, but it does work well in most recipes.

From a macro-nutrient point of view, PB2 is pretty good. The main selling point for PB2 is the low fat content, and one serving will produce you with 1g fat, 4g protein and 6g carbs. A pretty ffavourableratio for most, and the low fat reduces the calorie content massively for those concerned about calories. For me, the macro-nutrient ratios are ideal :)

Micro-nutrients are another story, with only trace amounts of a few vitamins and minerals. Nuts are known for being high in minerals, especially magnesium. It would seem that much of the nutrient content of peanuts has been lost in the processing, which is a shame.

I like this product, – it tastes great. My only complaint is the lack of micro-nutrients. I guess for many this wouldn’t be an issue, but as a nutritionist it is a biggie for me. Still a great product though, and it is a great low calorie ingredient for cooking with!