Growing up in the South, we didn’t do bagels.  Now, there are numerous bagel shops around town, but in my younger years, breakfast side options consisted of toast, biscuits, or grits.  I clearly remember my first bagel encounter.  We were on the way to elementary school, and a girl in my carpool was eating what looked like a bready donut slathered in cream cheese.  Her parents were the local “health nuts” – they used to power walk around the neighborhood together every night in their 80′s warm-up suits.  Think Julia Louis-Dreyfus and her yuppie husband in Christmas Vacation…

Anyway, I asked the girl what she was eating, and when she told me it was a bagel, I’m sure I immediately wrote it off as her usual horse feed fair and went back to eating my Pop-Tart.  However, over the next few years, I grew to love bagels.  In fact, I lived on them in college, back in the fat is evil, carbs are good decade.  It was during this time that I decided to make some changes in my life and eat better.  Sadly, bagels became an occasional treat, and then I stopped eating them altogether…you know, because they’re empty calories that shoot your blood sugar levels through the roof.  Fast forward to 2010…I got pregnant and welcomed bagels back into my life with open arms.  Less than two years later, I was pregnant again and ate bagels for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.  I try and aim for a little more variety these days, but bagel, I will never forsake you again.  You are and will always be one of my favorite breakfast foods.

My breakfast this morning: a cinnamon raisin bagel with whipped cream cheese on one half and crunchy peanut butter on the other.  Last week, I finally tried Peanut Butter Boy’s Crunchy after finishing off all of my opened jars of PB.  OK, I have to tell you that this is THE BEST crunchy peanut butter I’ve ever eaten.  I’m usually an all natural crunchy unsalted girl (think Smuckers or Trader Joe’s brand – I like it runny!), but nothing compares to the jar above.  It tastes straight up like fresh roasted peanuts – like the kind you get in a bag at a baseball game, and the chunkage factor is like no other PB I’ve tried…

We’re talking big pieces of peanuts in every bite, and the amount of salt is just right.  I must get my hands on more!

To read my review of Peanut Butter Boy Smooth, click here.  Also, some of you asked about Nick’s use of palm oil in his products.  To combat the unsustainable farming of palm oil, Peanut Butter Boy uses only Sustainable Certified (RSPO) Palm Oil. No exceptions.

So who out there fears the bagel?  Nothing to fear my friends, nothing to fear.  Also, do you prefer crunchy or smooth?  I’m a crunchy girl.

{ 59 comments }