PB2 I love you

If I did Friday Favorites on this blog, which I don't, today would totally be about PB2. I've just been thinking about PB2 all day long. How much I love it, how I can't live without it, when I'm going to eat it next... If you have not had the pleasure of meeting my friend, powdered peanut butter, allow myself to introduce... myself. I mean you, to PB2.

Here she is, folks. The ultimate healthy substitution for peanut butter. I wouldn't say I am the biggest peanut butter fan in the world, maybe in the top hundred thousand out of 5 billion people in the world, so that's a pretty big fan, but not like the BIGGEST fan. I love peanut butter, just not in stuff like brownies and cookies. That is what chocolate is for. But I love myself a PB&J, or PB on toast or celery or on a knife straight out of the jar... But the fat, my friends, the fat. I just can't make myself eat straight up hardcore peanut butter most of the time.

Enter PB2. I know it sounds strange, but it is dehydrated peanuts. And you just add water. To the desired consistency. You can have it thick, you can have it runny, you can dip a banana straight in the jar if no one is around. The possibilities are endless, really. But first I think you need to have the facts.

A 2 tablespoon serving of regular peanut butter runs about 200 calories and has 16 grams of fat (according to my jar of Kirkland brand Natural Peanut Butter). That's... a lot. For 2 tablespoons of anything.

BUT, a 2 tablespoon serving of PB2 has only 45 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. And that is the straight powder, before it is rehydrated. How awesome is that? I know, SO awesome. You could eat what, like 7 cups of it before you approached the equivalent 2 tablespoons of the hard stuff.

One of my favorite things to do with PB2 is add a tablespoon to my green smoothie in the morning. Honestly, people, I don't know how you choke those things down without PB2. Just a tablespoon only contributes 27 1/2 calories (if we're being technical) and gives a smoothie such a great flavor. Not a peanut butter shake flavor or anything, it just kind of kills that spinach and kale business that is going on in a green smoothie. In my opinion the only other way to tone down a green smoothie is with tons of fruit and I don't want tons of fruit in it. I want to eat fruit all day long, I don't need ten extra servings in my smoothie. A half a banana, yes. Maybe a few chunks of frozen pineapple or mango, sure. But cups and cups of strawberries or blueberries or what have you, I'd rather enjoy noshing them around with my teeth in the mid afternoon noshing hour. PB2 just adds to a smoothie, trust me. When I used to drink protein shakes (which I don't anymore, and here's why), adding PB2 was the only way I could manage drinking those beasts. It's just such a fun and useful product. You have to trust me on this.

Now the heavens have opened up and there is also chocolate PB2 available. It's amazing, obvi, but I am still heavily attached to the original as well. Here's a little visual of the chocolate so you don't have to overtax your imagination.

So where do you get PB2? Well, you can go straight to the Bell Plantation web site. Or Amazon, like I usually do. I've seen it at a few Smith's here and there, and my sister swears she saw it recently at good old Wal Mart. She's the new face for Lime Ricki Swimsuits, so even if she's wrong, no one can be mad at her for long because she's just so dang cute. See:

That's my sister.

She's adorable. You can't be mad at her for something as dumb as peanut butter.

I swear, I am sounding more like an infomercial the more I get into this. I'm not getting paid by PB2 or Lime Ricky to say any of this! In fact, I can't remember the last time I was paid to do anything. I just love PB2 and I want you to know about it. So there you go. Now you know.

Now go get yourself a little jar of it and report back to me. And excuse my little Austin Powers reference in the first paragraph. I don't endorse him either. I swear!