Is Almond Butter Healthier Than Peanut Butter? Mostly

By weight, mostly yes: per 100g, almond butter beats reduced-fat peanut butter on 6 of 7 nutrients, and peanut butter keeps only protein (25.9g against 20.8g). Per 100 calories the score narrows to 4–3. Almond butter still wins fiber, calcium, iron and magnesium, but peanut butter takes protein, potassium and zinc.

Read this first, because it changes the numbers. The peanut butter row we hold is reduced-fat smooth peanut butter (USDA FoodData Central, FDC 172458), and it is salted. The almond butter row is plain creamy almond butter (FDC 2262074). Regular peanut butter has more fat and more calories than the row here, so the calorie gap you see below is smaller than it would be on most shelves.

Is almond butter healthier than peanut butter?

Per 100g, almond butter has 7.5× the calcium (264mg against 35mg), 2.16× the iron, 1.87× the fiber and 1.58× the magnesium of reduced-fat peanut butter. It also edges ahead on potassium (745mg against 669mg) and zinc (3.18mg against 2.8mg). Peanut butter's one lead by weight is protein.

Bold marks the higher value in each nutrient column. "Peanut butter" here is the reduced-fat, salted row.

Which is healthier per calorie?

Per 100 calories, almond butter wins 4 nutrients and peanut butter wins 3: peanut butter has 4.98g of protein against 3.39g, 128.65mg of potassium against 121.34mg, and 0.54mg of zinc against 0.52mg. Potassium and zinc flip sides because almond butter has 614 calories per 100g against 520, so each calorie of it carries a little less. Its big leads survive the switch: 6.39× the calcium and 1.83× the iron per 100 calories.

The potassium and zinc leads are small, so we tested them against USDA rounding. Even in the worst case, where each USDA figure is off by its full half-unit in the unhelpful direction, peanut butter still has at least 0.528mg of zinc per 100 calories against at most 0.520mg for almond butter, and at least 128.4mg of potassium against at most 121.6mg. Both leads are real, just narrow.

Does peanut butter have more protein than almond butter?

Yes: reduced-fat peanut butter has 25.9g of protein per 100g against 20.8g for almond butter, and 1.47× as much per 100 calories. Put another way, 20g of protein costs about 402 calories of peanut butter (77g) and about 590 calories of almond butter (96g). Neither is a cheap way to buy protein. They are mostly fat: fat supplies 78% of almond butter's calories and 59% of this peanut butter's.

Which has less salt and saturated fat?

Almond butter: 1mg of sodium per 100g against 540mg in this salted peanut butter, and 4.25g of saturated fat against 5.76g. The sodium gap is about salt added in the jar, not the nut. Unsalted peanut butter exists and would close most of it. Check the label if salt is what you are watching.

What the numbers leave out

Sugar, vitamin A and vitamin C are blank in the almond butter row, so we score neither spread on them. The peanut butter row lists 9.28g of sugar per 100g, which is typical of reduced-fat versions: fat is taken out and sweetener goes in. We hold no per-spoon weights, so there is no per-tablespoon figure here. Weigh a spoonful once and scale: 16g is 0.16 of each per-100g number. Vitamin E, a strong point for almonds, is not in our data either.

Related

The full rows are on almond butter and peanut butter, and almond butter vs peanut butter lines them up side by side. For the whole nuts, see almonds vs peanuts. And if protein is why you buy peanut butter, the highest-protein legume shows where it ranks among beans and lentils.

The spoon is the real question

Which butter you pick matters less than how much lands on the toast. A heaped spoon holds a lot more than a level one, and no label shows the difference. Send Sunn "toast with a big spoon of almond butter" on WhatsApp and it logs it in one message, so your day adds up without opening an app.