Choosing a Healthy Peanut Butter

Today I want to walk you through choosing a healthy peanut butter. There are hundreds of different brands, all labeled and sold as peanut butter. But not all peanut butters are created equally. But it is very important to read the label and have an understanding of what you are eating. You may be unknowingly inflaming your cells and harming your digestive system because of all of the added ingredients in peanut butter. I know that some of my readers don’t eat peanut butter, but this will also help in choosing a healthy brand of any other nut or seed butter you may eat.

 

 

Here is a food label from a conventional peanut butter brand:

 

I chose Jif brand to picture above, but to be honest it could really be any of the processed peanut butters made out there. The reason I chose Jif and threw it under the bus is because this is the peanut butter I grew up on. We always had Jif in our cupboard, and only Jif. My dad was adamant about only buying Jif peanut butter and having that in the house. It wasn’t until I was in high school when we learned about hydrogenated oils (bad fats) that we switched to a natural peanut butter that was made from just peanuts and salt. It was a taste bud transition for all of us, especially my dad. But, I want to say, if he can switch over to a natural peanut butter and love it, anybody can! I have heard so many times that people are just going to stick with their current peanut butter because they don’t like the taste of the natural brands. I will encourage you to make the switch AND to keep up with it until your taste buds change. 

I want to talk about a couple of the ingredients in these processed peanut butters that can destroy our health and cause inflammation in our body. 

1. Peanuts: peanuts in and of themselves aren’t a bad food. These peanuts aren’t organic and have a high potential to have  mold on them. You don’t know where they are coming from and what kind they are. I like to know what kind of peanuts I am eating, so I choose an organic peanut butter made from Valencia Peanuts (if I can)
2. Sugar: Can we say Inflammation? Why does peanut butter even need to have sugar in it?
3. Molasses: More sugar! Once again, Why?
4. Fully Hydrogenated oil (rapeseed and soybean): This is a trans fat and a bad fat. This is the main reason why these processed peanut butters are so bad. This is a very toxic type of oil. Did you know it takes up to 120 days (4 months!) for this oil to fully clear out of our bodies? In addition to this, these oils are made from GMO’s soybeans. Also, I want to be clear about the ingredient label. If you look at the label on the Jif Peanut Butter, you will see they contain no trans fats. Then how am I telling you there are trans fats in it? They have label laws that state you don’t have to put it on a label if there are .5 grams or less per serving. So what many manufacturers did was decrease the serving size so they didn’t need to label it. 

What are some alternatives?

I am not going to tell you to cut out peanut butter. Nope! I eat it many times per week. But I will encourage you to do a stop-check and see what ingredients are in your current peanut butter and switch to a different kind if the ingredients are anything like what we went through above.

On a side note, if you have severe gut or health problems, you should experiment with taking nuts out of your diet for 30-60 days. It can be a huge help in decreasing inflammation and healing your body. Then you can slowly add them back in limited quantities and see how you do. I’ve had to do that with my health and it can make a dramatic difference! 

Here are some other options:

• Natural dry roasted nut butters. Did you know that you can get peanut butter that is ONLY made with peanuts? Some have peanuts and salt. There are many amazing brands of peanut butters available now. Just make sure to read the label. You want dry roasted peanuts and maybe salt. Definitely no added hydrogenated oils or sugars
• If you choose to not eat peanut butter you can do almond butter, cashew butter, macadamia nut butter or any other nut butter

• If you have a peanut allergy, you can try Sunbutter (find it here). It is roasted sunflower seeds made into a spread. I love the flavor of it and it’s nut free and amazing! You can also substitute Sunbutter in any recipe that calls for peanut butter

At first, you may have a hard time with the taste of a natural peanut butter. It’s has a much stronger peanut butter taste than the hydrogenated oil alternatives. But, I will guarantee you this, once you switch over to natural peanut butter you will fall in love with the flavor and hate the taste of the hydrogenated oil kind. You can literally taste the chemicals. It actually tastes like sugary plastic! But make the switch, your body and your cells will thank you! 

 Have you made the switch over to natural peanut butter yet?

Main Photo Credit: Paula Valentim via Flickr