I fear there is one right way to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and many of you are missing it.

Get 2 pieces of wheat bread. Regularly shaped, squarish bread. Reduced fat JIF goes on the left side. Use an amount that almost makes you scrape some off and put it back, but don’t. Grape jelly goes on the right. Grape. Enough that it slightly squishes out the edges when you put the bread together. I can give a pass to strawberry jelly since it’s still called jelly and it’s still made of fruit and basically exists for the same reason. You can make that choice but it’s not the right way.

Cut it diagonally into 2 triangles.

Here’s where I can give you a little grace as I know there is much debate over the proper way to cut a PBJ. So do as you wish: no crust, cut into squares, two perfect rectangular halves…I don’t love it but at least you have the right ingredients, the right foundation, so your expression is up to you. Just know that it won't look right if you choose a different cut.

I’m sorry, are you trying to disagree with my ingredients? You want to swap out my reduced fat JIF for another brand? Skippy? Peter Pan? Generic?! Well that’s just not the peanut butter I’m used to. It doesn’t look right on the bread. The consistency is wrong. Even the jar feels different in my hand. No, I don’t need to taste it to know, I can already tell you, I don’t like it.

Nutella? Honey? Marshmallow fluff? MAYONAISSE?! Now you’re really starting to rile me up. Do not add to the PBJ. The “PBJ” means something. The PBJ is a classic for a reason. PEANUT BUTTER + JELLY. That’s the foundation. That’s how it works. The rest of these ingredients are just new ideas, trying to make the sandwich sticky and confuse people. I know you might think you like it, you might think it tastes good, but it’s just because you saw someone else tell you it was good. You got caught up in a new idea. You’re in a phase because it’s trendy. But just because it’s a new idea doesn’t make it right.

And don’t even get me started on those of you who want to use bread thins or gluten free bread or crackers or apples…there is a time and place for all of that but not in a PBJ. Not in my house. That’s not the PBJ system I learned.

Then again…

maybe…

The peanut butter is truly all that matters. Maybe you could throw everything else out, eat the peanut butter straight off a spoon and still get the exact same benefit from it. Maybe the nutritional value of the protein and healthy fat will still get ingested, absorbed into your body regardless of what sandwich expression you choose. Maybe the way you make it, how it looks, when and how you eat it doesn't matter as long as you’re taking the peanut butter in.

I suppose, as long as you’re eating the peanut butter, how you prefer to eat it is all that matters. I suppose, I don’t really know how the other things added to it will affect you. I don’t know if you have a history of grape jelly hurting your body or if gluten will make you sick. I can’t see what happens to you on the inside once the peanut butter is there, so maybe I should just be happy that you’re taking it in at all. I guess I can trust your body and the internal things I can’t see to process it for you, to allow you to take the nutritional value from it that you need.

Maybe a PBJ really can look a variety of ways and be still be a PBJ. Maybe there really can be different versions, expressions and styles. Maybe you can pair the peanut butter with other things. It might have to have a different name. It will certainly look, smell and taste different. I won’t like a lot of them and some of your choices will make me uncomfortable because I don't understand how it can work like that, but…I guess…however the peanut butter makes sense to you doesn’t really have anything to do with me.

One last thing, before you think I’ve completely swung opposite into woowoo land and affirm a peanut butter freedom with no parameters. Peanut butter still must be peanut butter. Not almond butter. Not cashew butter. Do not even think of bringing me sunflower butter and trying to pass it off as peanut butter. This is still our foundation. This must remain the same. Peanut butter comes from peanuts. You can add whatever you want to your PBJ, wear what you want while eating it and eat it at whatever time of day you choose. But we can not change the makeup of the peanut butter itself. Get to know it. Learn it’s ingredients. Research how it interacts and responds to other things. Educate yourself on what peanut butter is all about because you can not have a PBJ without it. This is the one, unchanging truth of a PBJ.

I say this to give you freedom. Keep your peanut butter. But outside of that, don't let anyone else tell you how to make your sandwich.

P.S. In case my metaphor wasn’t clear…God is the peanut butter & the PBJ is the church, or your personal relationship with God. Now go back and read it again.