Do you crave peanut butter? Do you hoard peanut-butter-filled wonders in your freezer? Do you keep some in the fridge to ensure suitable textures for all nature of cravings? Have the mothers of children screamed at you for the trail of allergen-rife wrappers you leave in your wake?
I understand.
Peanut Butter Candy is not the most socially approved preoccupation. You can't just go around eating most
candies filled with peanut butter all the time. It's rude to steal them from your co-workers. It's greasy and melty and will do terrible things to your body. So the only real options are to force yourself into moderation or to feel guilty about giving in. Well, there's a better solution.
Because They're Modest
Peanut Butter Bars are out there waiting for you to discover them. They're a dark horse of the candy world. Maybe you've had them before and forgotten. These crunchy little guys have been made by Atkinson (the makers of
Chick-O-Stick) since 1932. But their nondescript packaging, absence from mass-media advertising, and spotty availability add up to a whole lot of people being unaware of their brilliance.
For Texture Reasons
Peanut Butter Bars have a texture similar to the wafer-like crisp peanut butter of
Butterfinger or
Zagnut, but are more light and airy. For some reason not immediately apparent they're coated on the outside with a thin, almost transparent, layer of white candy. But I trust these Atkinson people -- this sugar coating is obviously crucial to all order in the universe. It enhances the texture and doesn't mess with the robust nutty flavor. The layers of crunchy peanut butter splinter apart when you bite, filling your mouth with tiny wafers of goodness. There's something substantial about eating these. Where peanut butter cups just kind of disappear no matter how tiny you make your nibbles, you get to
experience a peanut butter bar.
The Ingredients are Real Words
Peanut Butter Bars smell like peanut butter cups, only more natural. With just 6 ingredients, it's easy to understand what they're made of. They're not labeled gluten free, but as an avoider of gluten, I'm not afraid to eat them. They have no gluten-containing ingredients, and the package says they're made in a facility that processes milk and soy, but not wheat.
For Health and Wellness!
It's a total bummer to spend all your candy karma points in one place. And when you love peanut butter, that's easy to do.
Reese's Mini Peanut Butter Cups are bomb, and they have their own unique textural delights. But a serving size of 5 pieces packs in 15 grams of fat. Zagnuts are nice, but a standard-size bar has 9 fat grams. A Snickers Peanut Butter Squared has 13 fat grams plus all those extra ingredients. That's all well and good and worth it for people who crave the chocolate-plus-peanut-butter combination.
But I'm concerned with the purists of the PB-loving community. All we really need is the peanut butter, but we prefer a more interesting delivery system than a spoon. Atkinson's Peanut Butter Bars knock it out of the park. These M-80s of peanut butter explosion have 1 gram of fat in a 2-piece serving. So if you eat the typical candy-bar allotment of 200ish calories, you can have 8 peanut butter bars, and they'll only contain 4 grams of fat!
So, basically, what I'm telling you is a way to indulge your peanut-butter candy craving more often and with less guilt.
And Bonus!
What better way to stave off hypoglycemia? Peanut Butter Bars are individually wrapped and stand up pretty well to heat, so you can totally keep them in your pockets. They're even flat and quiet enough to eat in class (as long as you can resist biting them. You're already indulging a craving! You don't need to bite them, too!)
Of course, you'll still have to pick up your wrappers. You are obsessed with a Big-8 allergen, after all.
