Chapter 2 page 237 - PB & P

As part of my lifestyle revolution, I knew I needed to abandoned the good ol' Jiff peanut butter . Jiff, regretfully, has trans fat, as you know. So . . . I decided that I just had to try to convert to natural peanut butter. Before you all say, "What, you aren't on the natural peanut butter bandwagon yet?" Here's a little background . . .

After graduating in 1997 with my health education degree, I was uber healthy. I moved to VA and ate and lived healthfully. That included trying natural peanut butter which back then was BARFY! It was crusty and chunky and kind of liked old dried up elementary school paste (remember that stuff?!?!). It was horrible. I tried several jars of it and BARF-O-RAMA!!!! I just couldn't take it so I returned to Jiff.

Skip ahead to 1/28/11 and my new lifestyle revolution, I knew I had to return to natural PB. My awesome BFF (blogger friend forever) Holly at RustBeltRunner gave me the 411 on natural PB. Thanks, Holly! I learned a lot - and most importantly I gained the confidence to "jump off the Jiff cliff".

So . . . last Saturday, I made the purchase.

Holly's recommendation (economic and tasty) -


I opened it and stirred up the oil (per Holly's instruction). It sure is runny!

I toasted a whole wheat bagel thin and spread a little on it. It was REALLY runny - is that normal? Like, do you use a spoon instead of knife? A little goes a long way since it's so runny.

It wasn't gross - it was rather bland. Let me tell you, it's come A LONG way in 15 years! I had talked with Holly about putting honey on it, as I've heard that's a good thing to add flavor, but I'm not a big honey fan. So . . I remembered that I enjoy eating grapes with my PB bagel (it's kind of like having grape jelly, but without the jelly part). I noticed the grapes weren't washed and I didn't really have time to mess with all that (I know, how long does it take? But I had to get to work). I was going to slice a banana on top, but I had that yesterday. Then I saw IT - the pomegranate in the container on the top shelf of the fridge - PERFECT!!! Yep, that will be the perfect "topper" for the PB. I decided to start by adding it to only one half, just in case it wasn't as good as I had imagined.

Guess what?? It was awesome, so I added the pom to the other half (and secretly I've been thinking about the awesomeoness ALL.DAY.LONG!!!). I added a lite yogurt and bottle of water and that was my breakfast.

Thanks Holly for helping me to improve my diet!!!! I am a convert!