Apple Sauce

 

Wow it's been a long time since we've posted - sorry about that! As you've probably gathered by now based on the things we post about (Cheerios, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Syrup), we have little ones, so with all the end of summer/beginning a new school year activities that go along with that, our kids are the excuse we're using for being so delinquent in posting (and BTW, I'm sure we'll use the kids as our excuse again in the future, so don't be surprised!). Well here's another one for all you moms out there - apple sauce! (We're spelling that as two words, because that's what's on the labels of the products we reviewed, but we were sure it was one word, and it seems to be used as one word all the time - which do you prefer?) We chose to review Mott's, Musselman's and Great Value all natural no sugar added/unsweetened apple sauce, because that's the type we buy for our kids (it makes us feel better about feeding them the occasional cherry frosted Pop-Tart - post on those to come!) Also the Musselman's is in a picture by itself because it was a late entry. We realized after starting our analysis that most stores carry these three primary brands, so we thought we better include it!

Price: GV and Musselman's apple sauce cups were a full 4 oz. vs. Mott's which were 3.9 oz. per cup (24 oz. vs. 23.4 oz. total). So Musselman's ended up being 9 cents per ounce, or 28% more than the Great Value apple sauce, which was 7 cents per ounce. The Mott's apple sauce was in between at about 8.5 cents per ounce, or 20% more than the Great Value apple sauce. Doing these calculations made us realize why we didn't include Musselman's in the first place - it's becuase we had never bought it before because it costs so much more!

Ingredients: There are two primary ingredients in all natural apple sauce - which probably isn't surprising for something so simple - apples and water. The GV and Mott's apple sauce also contained ascorbic acid.

Calories/Nutritional Information: Each type of apple sauce had 50 calories per cup. The Great Value and Musselman's apple sauces had 12 grams of carbohydrates per cup and 8 grams of sugars, while Mott's had 13 grams of carbohydrates and 11 grams of sugar; Great Value and Musselman's each listed 2 grams of fiber, while Mott's had 1 gram; and Great Value and Mott's each listed 85 mg of potassium (the Musselman's did not list any potassium). 

Two strange things caught our attention - the Great Value apple sauce indicates that is has 100% of the RDV (recommended daily value) of vitamin C, but Mott's listed vitamin C at 20% and the Musselman's had 0%. This doesn't really make sense to us given that apples are apples and should contain the same vitamins. So we did a little research and found out that ascorbic acid is a form of vitamin C. So it makes sense that the Great Value apple sauce has 100%, since it contains ascorbic acid, and the Mott's has only 20%, since it does not contain ascorbic acid. But the Musselman's apple sauce lists ascorbic acid as an ingredient and does not indicate that it has vitamin C. Which makes it seem like these companies are following different rules when listing nutritional information...

The second strange (alarming) thing we found in the nutritional information was that the GV and Musselman's apple sauce cups contained 10 mg of sodium per cup. This threw us for a loop (why would apple sauce contain sodium?) Salt is not listed in the ingredient list of either the Musselman's or GV apple sauce, so we did some research and found that an apple contains at most 1-2 grams of sodium, and that ascorbic acid does not contain sodium. Then we found that there can be as many as 10 grams of sodium per cup of unsweetened apple juice (see this), which makes us wonder if the reason GV and Musselman's apple sauces contain sodium is because they're putting apple juice in it... apple juice has the same ingredients as apple sauce, so the apple sauce could contain apple juice and the ingredient list would still be accurate, right? Wouldn't that also explain why the GV and Musselman's apple sauces tasted sweeter (since apple juice is basically concentrated apple flavor)? Let us know your theories on this!

Appearance: the Great Value and Musselman's apple sauces were a little darker in color than the Mott's (due to the ascorbic acid we are guessing, given that the Musselman's ingredient list indicates that the ascorbic acid is "added to maintain color") which you can sort of tell in these pictures (these are not great for comparison becuase they were taken at different times of day, so the lighting is different, but at least they give you an idea):

GV on the left, Mott's on the right

GV on the left, Musselman's on the right

Do you think the color of the Great Value and Musselman's apple sauces is more appealing? Does the Mott's apple sauce look more bland/anemic? We think the effect of color on our perception of tastiness and healthiness is very interesting so let us know your opinion!

Texture/the chew test: these had the same consistency/texture - none of them seemed chunkier or smoother or more watery than another.

Taste: the Mott's apple sauce was a little more tart/sour, while the GV and Musselman's apple sauces were sweeter. Musselman's seemed the sweetest but it was a very insignificant difference compared to the Great Value brand.

Bottom line: While the Great Value applesauce has the best price, we don't feel great serving our kids applesauce containing sodium. On the other hand, the sodium-free Mott's applesauce had more grams of sugar per cup, which we don't feel great about either. So you'll have to make a judgment call there - or let us know if you find one that is both low-sugar and sodium free!

Chocolate Syrup

Finally a fun analysis (not great for the waistline though) - we tested chocolate syrup! Only two contenders this time around, thankfully (or not?): Hershey's Genuine Chocolate Flavor Syrup and Great Value Chocolate Flavored Syrup. Here are our results:

Price: As with the Great Value peanuts reviewed last week, the generic chocolate syrup bottle contained less than the brand name version (24 oz. vs. 26 oz.), so once again the savings weren't quite as high as what they appeared to be when just looking at the price. We're not sure if the Hershey's syrup bottle always contains more than the generc bottle, since the Hershey's bottle says it contains an "extra" 2 ounces, but in our shopping experience it seems that products with "extra" or "bonus" labels usually don't change sizes (so it looks like you're getting a great deal, when actually there is no deal, if that's the size the packaging will always be from now on!). After figuring out how much the cost was per ounce, we found the generic chocolate syrup cost about 20% less than the brand name version.

Ingredients: The ingredients in these were exactly the same... which made us wonder if this was one of those situations where the exact same product is just being packaged under different labels (we hear that this happens but are not sure how to confirm it...any ideas??)

Hershey's: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, cocoa, sugar; contains 2% or less of potassium sorbate (preservative), salt, mono- and diglycerides, xanthan gum, polysorbate 60, vanillin, artificial flavor.

Great Value: high fructose corn syrup, corn syrup, water, cocoa processed with alkali, sugar, contains 2% or less of: potassium sorbate (preservative), salt, mono- and diglycerides, xanthan gum, polysorbate 60, vanillin (artificial flavor).

Calories/Nutritional Information: Both chocolate syrups contained 100 calories per serving, with 0 grams of fat, 15 mg of sodium and 24 grams of carbohydrates per serving. 

Appearance: The appearance of the chocolate syrups was identical. They were the same color and appeared to have the same thickness and consistency.

Texture/the chew test: Both syrups were equally syrupy - they felt equally sticky/runny when we tested them, both right out of the fridge and at room temperature. We also did a chocolate milk test, and both seemed to mix into the milk equally well.

Taste: We could not tell a difference on taste between these either, both straight and when mixed into the milk... honestly, we think they must be the exact same thing!

Bottom line: We're going to stick with the Great Value chocolate syrup for our future chocolate syrup needs. We just couldn't find a difference between these, and the 20% savings (which would be 25% if the Hershey's bottle ever loses its "extra" two ounces) is worth the switch.

Peanut Butter Time!



The contenders



Are you a fan of peanut butter? If so this post is for you! We compared what we believe are the four main types of peanut butter available at Wal-Mart: Great Value, Peter Pan, Jif, and Skippy. In all cases we tested the regular (not low-fat or low sodium or natural) creamy-type peanut butter. BTW, while we have some peanut butter fans in our household, we will be giving two of these jars away (we'll reveal which two below!) because the jars have "best if used by dates" and we're afraid we will not be able to eat it all before then. A person can only eat so much peanut butter!

Price: We were in luck this time - each of these peanut butters came in a 28 ounce size. We are aware of course that two of the jars in the picture above are not the 28 ounce size, but we compared the prices of the 28 ounce jar for each type of peanut butter. We bought smaller jars when we could because we just didn't need that much peanut butter! Our biggest surprise was when we found that the Great Value and Jif brands cost exactly the same, each of which cost 7% less than the Peter Pan peanut butter and 9% less than the most expensive Skippy peanut butter. The savings this time were not as great as they have been with other items we've compared, but every little bit counts in this economy, right?

Ingredients: Peanut butter contains basically four ingredients: peanuts, sugar, vegetable oil and salt. A few of the brands added some other things though, too:

Great Value: peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil (rapeseed, cottonseed, soybean), dextrose, salt, molasses, monoglycerides.

Jif (the label says Jif is the "#1 Choice of Choosy Moms"): roasted peanuts and sugar, contains 2% or less of: molasses, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils (rapeseed and soybean), mono and diglycerides, salt.

Peter Pan: roasted peanuts, sugar, less than 2% of: hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed and rapeseed), salt, partially hydrogenated cottonseed oil.

Skippy: roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed, soybean and rapeseed) to prevent separation, salt (the least amount of ingredients, and they are all things that we recognize - always a plus!).

We once again are curious how easy/difficult it is to make your own peanut butter (and if it's worth it) - anyone tried it?

Calories/Nutritional Information: The Great Value peanut butter had the least amount of calories and fat per serving, at 180 calories and 15 grams of fat, 130 mg of sodium, 8 grams of carbohydrates, and 7 grams of protein. Jif and Skippy each had slightly more calories and fat per serving, at 190 calories and 16 grams of fat. These also had slightly more sodium per serving, at 140 mg for Jif and 150 mg for Skippy. Jif contained the same amount of carbohydrates and protein per serving as the generic, and Skippy had one additional gram of carbohydrates and the same amount of protein per serving as the generic. Peter Pan had the most calories and fat per serving at 210 calories and 17 grams of fat, 140 mg of sodium, slightly less (6 grams) carbohydrates than the others, and slightly more protein per serving at 8 grams.

Appearance: The peanut butters ranged from Jif being the lightest to Peter Pan being the darkest in color. Also the Great Value peanut butter had a more solid, uniform color compared to the other three, which all had more "speckles" of peanut in them.



Color comparison - Jif vs. Peter Pan




See the speckles in the Peter Pan peanut butter vs. lack of peanut speckles in the generic?

 Texture/the chew test: The Jif peanut butter felt a little thicker than the others, while the Skippy, Peter Pan and Great Value peanut butters all seemed a little creamier. The Great Value peanut butter had the most oily texture.

Taste: This was our most fun taste test to date. We pulled in some guest taste testers for this one since there were so many different kinds of peanut butter and found that everyone had different opinions on which peanut butter they thought was best. We did agree to some basic taste results, though: 1) the Great Value peanut butter has the least peanuty and most oily taste (in fact a few of us were shocked by the oily-ness of the GV peanut butter after trying all the others), and had a somewhat unpleasant after taste; 2) the Skippy peanut butter tasted sweeter than the others; 3) the Peter Pan peanut butter was the least sweet, and had a more salty roasted peanut taste; and 4) Jif seemed to be in between Skippy and Peter Pan in terms of roasted peanut flavor and sweetness (sweeter than Peter Pan but not as sweet as Skippy, and more roasted peanut flavor than Skippy but less than Peter Pan).

Bottom line: Although our guest taste testers each had their own favorite, we would generally recommend Jif, since it was the cheapest (same price as the generic) and still had a good flavor, balancing sweetness and roasted peanut taste. Oh and as for the jars we're giving away - the Great Value peanut butter is being donated to our breakroom at the office and the Peter Pan peanut butter will go to one of our guest tasters, because it was her favorite and took her back to her childhood. Enjoy KJ!