Nut Butter Comparison — The Nut Butter Ladder

Sub-scores

MLS	How extreme the nutrition label is — flagging high sugar, sodium, saturated fat, and energy-dense sweet formulations.	0–20
MDS	How many core ingredients have been replaced by industrial substitutes (modified starches, hydrogenated fats, HFCS, protein isolates).	0–30
AFS	How many chemical additives are stacked in — emulsifiers, preservatives, artificial colors, flavor enhancers.	0–80
HES	How engineered the sweetener system is — sugar alcohols, non-nutritive sweeteners, and multi-sweetener blending strategies.	0–20
Composite	MDS + AFS + HES + MLS. How far a product has moved from recognizable food.	0–150

Classification tiers

Processing class — derived from composite score
C0	Clean	0
C1	Clean, Minimal Markers	1–5
P1a	Light Processing	6–15
P1b	Moderate-Light Processing	16–25
P2a	Moderate Processing	26–38
P2b	Moderate-Heavy Processing	39–50
P3	Heavy Industrial Formulation	51–75
P4	Ultra-Formulated	76+

Metabolic class — derived from MLS
N0	No Metabolic Load	0
N0+	Minimal	1–3
N1a	Low	4–6
N1b	Low-Moderate	7–8
N2	Moderate	9–14
N3	High	15+

Ingredient detail

Product	Ingredients	Class	What FIS Detected
Smucker’s Natural Creamy Peanut Butter	Peanuts, contains 1% or less of salt	Clean	Nothing to flag — peanuts and salt, that’s it
Justin’s Classic Almond Butter	Dry roasted almonds, palm oil	Clean	Almonds + palm oil — same clean score as natural peanut butter
Skippy Natural Creamy Peanut Butter	Roasted peanuts, sugar, palm oil, salt	Clean, Minimal Markers	Sugar + palm oil barely move the needle — HES=4, no additives
Justin’s Honey Almond Butter	Dry roasted almonds, palm oil, organic honey, organic powdered sugar (organic cane sugar, organic tapioca starch), sea salt	Light Processing	Honey + powdered sugar = HES 8 + MLS 7 — still zero additives
Jif Creamy Peanut Butter	Roasted peanuts, sugar, contains 2% or less of: molasses, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils (rapeseed and soybean), mono and diglycerides, salt	Moderate-Light Processing	Hydrogenated oils + mono/diglycerides — first real industrial threshold
Nutella Hazelnut Spread	Sugar, palm oil, hazelnuts, skim milk, cocoa, lecithin as emulsifier, vanillin: an artificial flavor	Moderate-Light Processing	Sugar is ingredient #1 — vanillin (artificial) + lecithin push AFS to 10

Analysis

Six nut butters and spreads, scores 0 to 34. Natural peanut butter and natural almond butter both score 0 — the nut type doesn’t matter. It’s what you add that counts: sweeteners, hydrogenated oils, emulsifiers, and artificial flavors build the ladder rung by rung.

Key Takeaways

Smucker’s Natural (0) and Justin’s Classic Almond (0) both score zero — peanut vs. almond makes no difference when the ingredient list is just nuts and oil.
Skippy Natural (4) adds sugar and palm oil. HES = 4 from the added sweetener, but still zero additives. The jump from 0 to 4 is minimal.
Justin’s Honey Almond (17) is the surprise: still zero AFS — no chemical additives at all — but honey + organic powdered sugar push HES to 8 and MLS to 7. Clean ingredients can still accumulate processing points through sweetener engineering.
Jif Creamy (25) crosses the industrial threshold: fully hydrogenated vegetable oils and mono/diglycerides push MDS to 10 and trigger the first AFS. That one Tier A additive (mono/diglycerides) accounts for all of Jif’s AFS = 6.
Nutella (34) — sugar is ingredient #1, not hazelnuts. Vanillin (an artificial flavor) and lecithin give it AFS = 10, but the real driver is MLS = 14: 21 g of sugar per serving.

Sub-score Deep Dive

AFS stays at zero for 4 of 6 products. Only Jif (mono/diglycerides) and Nutella (vanillin + lecithin) trigger additive detection. Natural nut butters are inherently additive-free.
MDS drives the Jif jump: MDS = 10 from fully hydrogenated vegetable oils is the largest single sub-score leap in the lineup. The oils prevent separation but disrupt the ingredient matrix.
HES does more work than expected: Justin’s Honey Almond reaches P1a with zero additives, purely through sweetener layering (honey + powdered sugar = HES 8).
The scatter shows uniform fat: 5 of 6 products cluster at 16–19 g fat. Nutella breaks the pattern — lower fat (11 g) but 21 g sugar, the only product where sugar dominates the nutrition profile.