Today, we will be talking about peanut butter benefits, side effects, and some best alternatives.
What is peanut butter?
Peanut butter is a spread made of ground roasted peanuts. When peanuts are ground, they released oil, which creates that pasty consistency. Most commercially made peanut butter also contains additives such as salt, oil, and sugar to improve the taste and texture.
Benefits
High in protein
Peanut butter is made of peanuts and peanuts are pretty healthy. They are high in protein to keep you full. Making them a great option if you’re sticking to a plant-based diet, or trying to up your protein game. Peanut butter, not just for kids. Plus, they contain unsaturated good fat, fiber, antioxidants and more. They’re the total package. Peanuts also have folate, which helps you make more red blood cells and thus, keep your energy levels up. PB and J, more like PB and yay. And they also contain the antioxidant resveratrol, an inflammation fighter that’s also found in wine.
Reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease
According to many studies, peanut consumption can reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. And even offers cardioprotective effects. In addition, studies have shown, as much as a 40% reduction in mortality due to any factor, has been reported when peanuts were included as an integral part of a routine diet. So basically, your risk for mortality in general decreases when peanuts are part of your diet.
Good source of vitamins
Vitamins are important for our body to function properly and peanut butter is one of them to consume it. Vitamin A found in it is helpful for eyesight, while vitamin C helps to boost the immune system and heals simple ulcers faster. On the other hand, vitamin E found in peanut butter is a very important micronutrient needed by our body to dissolve complex fatty acid structures and fat blockages in the arteries.
Side effects
Sugar
All of these things are related to the label. Paying attention to the label. Make sure you are reading the label on your peanut butter. So first here is sugar, we have to make sure that we are avoiding peanut butter with sugar it. Much of it has that in there just for, first of all, to make it taste better, more appealing, but also to make it more addictive. We know that sugar is very addictive to the brain so the brand with the most sugar in it is typically the brand that the average person might like most.
The other problem with sugar is that the sugar that is in the peanut butter is typically in the way of corn syrups. We have to make sure that we are avoiding sugar all together and of course the ones with the really bad sources of sugar in it, which is corn syrup.
Hydrogenated oils
When we look at these peanut butter, they typically have very cheap oils in them. Like cottonseed oil or soybean oil and it is just to keep the price down but it is also to make it very creamy. People tend to like that more. But hydrogenated oils drag inflammation into our body and are very unhealthy for us. We want to make sure that it has no bad oils to it. Even organic brands typically have hydrogenated oils added right in.
Aflatoxin
Basically, aflatoxin is a mold that is grown on the peanuts, simply because the peanuts are growing on the ground. The peanuts that are growing on the ground have these aflatoxins in them and it has been found to be linked to cancer. So we have to make sure that we are aware of that too.
Toxins
When we look at peanuts they are very highly sprayed during the growing process, they are covered with pesticides, herbicides and the glysophate, as well. We want to make sure that we are getting good quality peanut butter, typically the organic, at the very least so that we know they are not covered in toxins throughout the cold growing process.
Some alternatives to peanut butter
Almond butter
What we recommend is nice, raw almond butter and we recommend raw because what that means is that it hasn’t been roasted and that means that the fats within the almonds have been denatured. Getting raw almond butter is a great option.
Valencia / Jungle peanut butter
Valencia peanut butter is a better option because it is not grown on the ground. The peanuts are grown off the ground in more of like a bush and essentially it does not get the mold issue so it does not have the aflatoxin issue. Valencia peanut butter is a great option. Typically you can find that at Trader Joe’s and then the other great option is peanut butter that comes from jungle peanuts and that is typically a little bit harder to find, but the Internet makes it a little bit easier if you want a jungle peanut, peanut butter.
Sunflower seed butter
There is always a sunflower seed butter and that is great because it actually comes from the seed. It is loaded with vitamin E, magnesium, good quality fats, and even protein. When we look at sunflower seed butter it is a great option, as well.