Peanut butter is like tomato sauce -- it's one of those foods that *can't* be made really low-carb, because the foods it's made from have carbs. Peanuts are a legume, not a true nut, so they contain more natural starches than things like macadamias. They're relatively low GI carbs, though, naturally combined with fat and protein, and so are a better choice than a lot of other foods with similar carb counts. Still, though, they're carbs, and that's just the way it goes with peanut butter. If you like peanut butter, just plan those 4g into your day -- it's easy enough to do, especially if you're on maintenance.

All-natural peanut butters actually are a little higher-carb than the regular stuff, but this isn't necessarily a bad thing. The regular stuff uses lots of nasty trans-fats as filler, decreasing the amount of peanuts in the same volume of the finished product. Instead of being 100% peanuts like the natural PB, it's a mixture of peanuts and trans-fats, and since trans-fats don't have any carbs, the overall carb count is a lower. However, trans-fats are BAD for you, and the added sugar contained in most regular peanut butters isn't exactly a good thing either. I don't think saving a single puny little carb gram is worth the trans-fats and the sugar, myself.

Side rant (not targeted at you specifically, honeyb):

This is why the low-carb product craze drives me a little nuts sometimes -- c'mon people, didn't we learn ANYTHING from the Snackwells orgies of the 1990s? Just because something is nearly carb-free doesn't mean that it's a "free" food, or that it's particularly good for you, or that it will help your weight loss. Yes, there's something to be said for minimizing the damage from occasional indulgences, and a low-carb chocolate bar is certainly better for you than one with sugar. But that doesn't mean you can have one, or two or three, every day just because they have hardly any carbs, or that you should choose your foods solely on the basis of the carb counts.

Remember, a carb isn't just a carb, any more than a calorie is a calorie -- a low-carb tortilla is metabolized differently from a cup of green beans, even though the carb count is roughly equivalent. This WOE isn't just about eating some magic carb gram number, but about eating wholesome, natural, unprocessed, low-glycemic-index foods. No, they're not necessarily carb-free, but this isn't a zero-carb diet, and there are no prizes given for who can eat the least carbs. When it comes to moderate-GI foods, it's better for your health to take an extra couple grams and eat the real food -- if you're not willing to do that, you probably don't want the food that badly, so why bother with a substitute? Of course, that doesn't apply to very high-GI stuff, like food containing sugar or flour, which should just plain be avoided wherever possible, even in small quantities. But I think trying to radically reduce or eliminate the carbs from moderate-GI foods, and replacing them with a bunch of fillers, is just lunacy. You can work just about any single maintenance-OK food into an OWL day with a little planning, and it's better for you (mentally and physically) to do that than to get in the habit of reaching for frankenfood.