Name-brand vs Generic Diapers

Yes, I’m going to go there! In the mail today, I received a note from Safeway launching their Mom to Mom line of baby products, saying:

Welcome our newest arrival: a full line of baby products created for moms, by moms.

When we set out to improve our line of baby products, we went to the source – moms. Starting with a team of experienced moms, we asked what they needed and wanted most in products to care for their babies.

From this collective wisdom we created mom to mom™, the new and improved Safeway brand of baby products available at a Safeway store near you.

Mom to mom™ offers over 40 new items, including diapers, baby wipes, toiletries and lotions. Every item was developed with that special mother’s touch to help make those first few years of parenting just a little bit easier.

So when you choose any mom to mom™ product you can rest assured knowing that is was born of the experience of real moms. Because when it comes to caring for babies, moms always know best.

They also included three coupons, good until March 31, 2010: $3.00 off 192+ count wipes, $3.00 off diapers or training pants, and $1.50 off 444mL toiletries.

I bought a package of mom to mom diapers, and one is actually on Penny now for her nap. Cross your fingers and wish us luck because I don’t want to clean up after a leaky diaper! I’ll update this again soon with some price comparisons and my initial impressions and all that good stuff.

I might test other generic brand diapers in the future, but right now I’m only looking at Safeway’s generic brand in my reviews.

Name-brand vs Generic Peanut Butter

I know… I haven’t forgotten. Last week I said I’d start comparing name-brand vs generic products, starting with peanut butter on Monday of this week (yesterday). I bought a little jar of Safeway brand peanut butter over the weekend, and it is sitting on my kitchen table. But I’m scared to try it! There’s a layer of oil on top, and it’s marked on the lid that “Oil separation naturally occurs with this product. Stir fully before use. Refrigerate after opening.” It may be natural, but my Kraft peanut butter doesn’t do that. And who refrigerates their peanut butter? I actually saw a debate about that recently, and it seems very few people actually refrigerate it unless it’s natural (organic type). Again, Kraft doesn’t say to refrigerate.

So let’s compare nutrition information:

	Kraft Smooth	Safeway Creamy Old Fashioned
Serving Size	1 tbsp / 15g	1 tbsp / 15g
Calories	90	100
Fat	8g / 12%	8g / 12%
Saturated + Trans	1.5g / 0g = 8%	1g / 0g = 5%
Cholesterol	0mg	0mg
Sodium	70mg / 3%	0mg / 0%
Carbs	3g / 1%	3g / 1%
Fibre	1g / 4%	1g / 4%
Sugars	1g	1g
Protein	3g	3g
Vitamin A	0%	0%
Vitamin C	0%	0%
Calcium	2%	0%
Iron	4%	2%
Vitamin E	8%	–
Thiamin	6%	–
Niacin	10%	–
Folate	15%	–
Magnesium	8%	–
Ingredients	Select Roasted Peanuts, Soybean Oil, Maltodextrin, Sugar, Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil, Dextrose, Salt	Peanuts

From the nutrition information and ingredients, I’d say the Safeway brand is kicking peanuts! But again, I’m scared to try something new (and I just finished a huge chunk of cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory). Tomorrow I will actually TASTE the two kinds and see which one tastes better, and I’ll update it here.

Kraft versus Safeway brands of peanut butter - Kraft on the left, Safeway on the right

Update um… 6 days later? I have finally tested both peanut butters. Yes I was scared to try something new. But we also had nothing in the house with which to eat peanut butter. No bread, no crackers, or celery or bananas. I would have had Court make some peanut butter cookies, but he was sick all weekend (which he kindly passed on to me last night). So to get to the gritty details, the winner is the Kraft PB!

To be fair, the generic PB tasted better, flavor-wise. It definitely tasted like peanuts – not that I was expecting anything else with only peanuts on the ingredient list. And if that was the only thing I was basing my opinion on, I’d say switch to generic! But, it’s not. The generic had a totally different texture, less smooth than the Kraft. Where the Kraft is sticky and gooey, the generic seemed to lose all of its moisture once it hit the back of my tongue. I had to take a sip of my tea in between almost every bite with the generic PB to wash it down. That, coupled with the separation of oil and needing to refrigerate the generic PB, means that I’m going to pay the extra to have that creamy goodness called Kraft peanut butter.

Check back soon (well, maybe in a week or two) for another name-brand versus generic review!