Price: $4.19 (full price :()
Serving: 1 sandwich, 2oz.
Calories: 210
Fat: 14%, 9g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 10%, 230mg
Protein: 19g
Carbs: 9%, 26g
Fiber: 7%, 2g
Sugar: 10g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Smuckers says: Smuckers has discovered a new way to seal its homemade goodness into a delicious PB & Honey sandwich. The secret is there’s no crust so kids love ‘em!

Abi says: Every time I visit Seattle, my college town, I spend a morning at Pike Place Market and am instantly distracted by the food. I gorge on miniature doughnuts still hot from the fryer and tossed with cinnamon and sugar. I accept slices of fresh pear, dripping juice and proffered from the tip of a sharp knife. I taste honey categorized by flowering plant, featuring the names Fireweed, Clover, Lavender and Alfalfa, offered upon wooden stir sticks.

It was the honey that did me in. Given a cracker topped with a bit of fresh cheese, I bit in with pleasure. “Wait!” said the farmer, before I could take a second bite. She drizzled the rest of the cheese with honey and I just about died right there in downtown Seattle.

Back in California I started trying everything honey. Honey and cheese (still freaking amazing), honey lattes (not that great), honey-caramel corn (okay) and Peanut Butter and Honey Uncrustables (not actually made with honey. Okay, made with a little bit of honey, but probably not enough honey to convince my mom that it is anything but the devil).

I was excited about trying these because they are made with whole wheat bread and I have been nothing if not brainwashed by my hippie forebears. The thought of Wonderbread makes me gag. Though, the thought of a freshly baked loaf of white bread makes me wonder if anyone has some butter and jam. The wheat bread used by Smuckers really just highlights the fact that white bread is also made of wheat and that adding caramel color is a weird way to hide a lack of fiber.

The peanut butter inside the ubersoft bread pocket was creamy, nutty and just about everything that non-all-natural non-chunky (see, smooth) peanut butter should aspire to be. The honey was utter weirdness. For one, there is a lot of it. I don’t know about you, but when I make a peanut butter and honey sandwich, I do not make it with a 1:1 ratio of peanut butter to honey. No, I prefer at least twice as much peanut butter as honey or jam, perhaps even a 3:1 ratio of nut butter to sweet. The other scary thing about the honey spread? Well, it didn’t really taste like honey. It just tasted like goo, a sensation that made me take a look at the ingredients, which are below:

1. Corn Syrup
2. High Fructose Corn Syrup
3. Water
4. Honey
5. Pectin
6. Natural Flavor
7. Citric Acid
8. Potassium Sorbate
9. Caramel Color
10. Calcium Chloride

I think the United States is the only country were the labeling laws are so lax that this can be called ‘Honey Spread’. Aren’t the actual ingredients in honey something like “Pollen and bee spit/vomit”?

Yet, as horrifying as I found the possibility of eating a pocket of peanut butter and (mostly) fake, non-bee-spit honey, I ate/used all of these. You see, they are perfect for two things:

1. Travelling across the country
2. Giving to homeless people

On a trip to Austin I consumed one pocket on the train and one on the plane. I did not pay $17 for a suspect sandwich from American Airlines (though I did fly in a seat just in front of the enormous aircraft engines and spent most of my flight thinking about the first episode of Lost and that guy who walks in front of the engine and well, you know.) While walking through downtown Palo Alto I provided some homeless lady with a snack. If I’m on my way to a meeting or meeting up with some folks I don’t have to take the time to purchase a sandwich for someone who needs medication just as much as food, I can just carry one around. And therein lies the utility of the Uncrustable.

Price: $2.50 per box of 4
Serving: 1 sandwich, 1.72oz.
Calories: 200 per serving
Fat: 17%, 11g
Cholesterol: 0%, 0mg
Sodium: 10%, 250mg
Protein: 7gg
Carbs: 6%, 18g
Fiber: 7%, 2g
Weight Watchers Points: 5 Points

Smuckers says: We’ve discovered a new way to seal our homemade goodness into a delicious PB sandwich. The secret is there’s no crust to kids love ‘em!

Abi says: These are a huge waste of money. $2.50 for four peanut butter (no jelly) sandwiches? That’s 62.5¢ per sandwich, and that’s when they’re on sale.

But, if I see these on sale I pick up a box. Why? Because I don’t eat enough bread to make buying an entire loaf worthwhile (this may change when I start working from home) and peanut butter? I’m sure I have some in the cupboard, but without any bread a sandwich is out of the question. And when I do buy bread it is usually something fun like a fresh baguette from the farmer’s market, a loaf of rosemary and olive oil bread from Wegman’s, or a couple of Asiago bagels. None of those things are particularly good partners for peanut butter.

Smucker’s Uncrustables let me satisfy my occasional peanut butter craving without requiring me to keep a loaf of bread in the house at all times. Sure, I wish that they were made with whole wheat bread and that they came with all natural peanut butter, but considering that at most I have one a week, I can deal with those limitations.