Best Nut Butters to Eat Right Now

Research supports making any type of nut a regular part of your diet. In a study of almost 120,000 men and women, those who ate about an ounce of nuts every day were 20 percent less likely to die of any cause during the 30-year study period—and 29 percent and 11 percent less likely to die from heart disease and cancer, respectively—compared with people who didn’t eat nuts. Other research has linked nut consumption with a lower risk of type 2 diabetes and obesity.

What’s more, the fat in nuts is mostly the healthy kind. “The unsaturated fatty acids in nuts lower inflammation and reduce LDL [bad] cholesterol, which is beneficial in preventing heart disease,” says Ying Bao, M.D., an assistant professor of medicine at Harvard’s medical school. They supply antioxidants that may help reduce cancer risk. And they provide nutrients that boost heart health, such as cholesterol-lowering fiber; potassium, which helps control blood pressure; and arginine, an amino acid that helps your body make nitric oxide, a compound that relaxes blood vessels. “The nutrients work together, enhancing the benefits of each.”

Some research has concluded that nuts and nut butters offer similar benefits. But a study from Maastricht University in the Netherlands that looked at peanuts and nuts separately from peanut butter found that nut intake was linked with lower mortality but that eating peanut butter wasn’t. The study said that may have been because of the sodium and artery-clogging trans fat content of the Dutch peanut butter.

A high calorie count—about 160 to 200 calories per ounce­—is the one drawback of nuts. And in butter form, it’s all too easy to spread or spoon on more than you should. But nuts help you feel full, and if you stick with the recommended 1½ ounces of nuts or 2 to 3 tablespoons of nut butter per day, you’ll get the benefits without going overboard on calories.

Alternative nut butters can often replace the “P” in a PB&J sandwich for people allergic to peanuts. You should check with your doctor, but “not everyone with a peanut allergy is allergic to tree nuts, and they often can be safely brought into a peanut-free school,” says Todd D. Green, M.D., an associate professor of pediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC. Of the one-third of U.S. schools that restrict the type of food that can be brought in, 97 percent prohibit peanuts, according to the School Nutrition Association. But 60 percent allow other nuts.

Read nut-butter labels carefully. If a product contains peanuts, the Food and Drug Administration requires the manufacturer to note it on the label. You may also see such warnings as “may contain peanuts” or “produced in a facility that processes peanuts.”

With the growing number of nut butters available, you have a lot of tasty options. To see whether there were considerable differences among brands, Consumer Reports evaluated a dozen almond and cashew spreads for nutrition, taste, and price. Both were similar in calories and fat, but sodium and protein varied. And the best ones had the fewest ingredients­ and tasted just like the nuts themselves. Some had a consistency that was somewhat runny and thin, which might make for a messy sandwich.

Some nut butters separate; the oil from the nuts rises to the top of the jar, so you have to stir before you spread. To prevent that separation and give nut butters a creamy texture, some manufacturers add hydrogenated vegetable oil or palm or palm fruit oil. Those are mostly saturated fats that keep the butter together because they’re solid at room temperature. Five of the almond butters and one of the cashew butters we tested have one of those oils. The amount was small, but too much saturated fat can be bad for your heart.

The 12 almond and cashew butters we tested are organized below according to their taste score. Nutritionally, the best nut butters are those that contain only nuts. A little bit of salt is okay, too. But when choosing one, keep the other ingredients, including sugars, to a minimum.