The latest thing in peanut butter is Jif to Go Chocolate Silk peanut butter and chocolate flavored spread. (It's called "chocolate flavored" on the box because the chocolatey part of the flavor is cocoa plus peanut oil; that's not a bad combination, but it's not chocolate). Anyway, to Mr. Tidbit's knowledge this is the first major-brand chocolatey peanut butter.
Why Jif chose to introduce it in the odd little 11/2-ounce Jif to Go tublets (eight in a 12-ounce package) instead of the 18-ounce jars is unclear to Mr. Tidbit, but there it is. The package suggests using it as a dip, but so does the box of regular Jif to Go. It's the same price as the other Jifs to Go (there are already, of course, creamy, crunchy, natural and reduced-fat), which at one store cost about 30 percent more per ounce than Jif in an 18-ounce jar.
More protein Mr. Tidbit is unaware of a need for protein supplementation in the American diet (the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine says "the average American consumes about double the protein her or his body needs"). Still, he recently noted the warming-up of the protein-centered-product business, with the appearance of General Mills' Nature Valley Protein chewy bars and, from Kellogg's, Eggo protein waffles. (Kellogg's already had Special K protein meal bars and Special K Protein Plus cereal.)
And now Nabisco has an entry, under its Snackwell's brand: three flavors of cereal bars, each with 8 grams of protein highlighted on the box of five 1.23-ounce bars, which at one store sells for $3.23 (52.5 cents an ounce). That's a lot less than the Special K protein meal bars, with 10 grams of protein per 1.58-ounce bar, which are $6.99 for a box of six (73.5 cents an ounce) at that store. The Nature Valley Protein chewy bars, which have 10 grams of protein per 1.42-ounce bar, are $3.65 for a box of five (51.4 cents an ounce) at the same store.
