Sometimes you feel like a nut. And sometimes you feel like an entirely different kind of nut.

On the days when you crave a variation on peanut butter, all kinds of nuts can serve as tasty alternatives. Based on what I see on the shelves at my neighborhood natural foods store, the most popular seem to be cashew, almond, and sunflower.

There are also alternatives for people who are allegeric to nuts. And perhaps the newest twist that I've noticed recently are the new and improved peanut butters, which are made with less fat and calories, and include flax seeds and other healthy ingredients. I bought one a couple months back—with mixed results. More on that later.

There's a helpful survey of some of the options available posted on the Epicurious website. They taste tested nine different kinds of alternative butters and have comments from adults, teens, and kids.

They also note a couple of spreads that might be good substitutes for anyone with a peanut allergy. Soynut butter, for instance, is a possible stand-in, although it didn't get a unanimous thumbs up from the kids. Some liked it, others compared it to spackle. Sunflower butter, on the other hand, seems to be a real crowd-pleaser. I guess I'll try it.

Personally, I'm pretty new to nut butters. I've never sampled either soynut or sunflower butters. Almond butter is the farthest I've ventured away from the extra-chunky peanut butter I'm used to.

I inhereted a jar of almond butter a while back from a friend who was moving, and it sat in my fridge for months. And then once, when baking some cookies, that jar of almond butter saved the day.

I didn't check the ingredients carefully, and when the recipe called for peanut butter, I was out of luck. So, I substituted almond butter. It was delicious! It added a little mystery to an otherwise standard recipe. Plus, it's probably a very healthy option, due to the almond's amazing disease-fighting properties.

Meanwhile, a couple months back, I did buy a jar of suped up peanut butter, called Naturally More: What Peanut Butter Should Be. It's made with flax seed, flax seed oil, and other nutrients, plus it's much lower in fat and calories. It tasted quite good, but—as the panel noted on Epicurious—it's also quite a hassle to mix it up. I recently finished it off and I'm not sure that I'll replace it.

I might have to try a cashew butter instead.