Let’s talk peanut butter!
Who else loves peanut butter? I grew up eating peanut butter sandwiches almost everyday for school lunches! My love for peanut butter runs deep. Even today, it is always a delicious snack after a workout, hike, or for a quick lunch.
Peanut butter is an all around great snack. It provides protein, healthy fats, and nutrients such as niacin, vitamin E, folate, and fiber. The healthy fats in peanut butter includes mono and polyunsaturated fats.
But not all peanut butters are equal
Have you ever looked at the ingredient list on the most popular peanut butter brands? You will find things like
peanuts
sugar
fully hydrogenated vegetable oils
mono and Di-glycerides
Salt
Palm fruit oil
Wait a minute… that is a lot of ingredients added to peanut butter. Something that can literally be made from just... peanuts.
Lets look at a couple of these ingredients
Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils
This is an extremely hard wax-like fat. What this does is prevents the natural oils from peanuts from rising to the top so that when you open a jar, you can just smear it on to your bread without having to mix in the oils. However, adding fats to something that doesn’t truly need fats isn’t healthy for you. Obviously with so much added fats it can affect things like raising your LDL (bad cholesterol) and lowering your HDL (good cholesterol).
It is best to avoid these when possible. There are plenty of brands that you can buy in the store that does not contain this.
Sugar
We all know sugar is bad for us. It leads to a lot of health issues, diabetes, and weight gain. This is another ingredient that is unnecessary to be added into your peanut butter. It is almost completely impossible to cut out all sugar from our diets these days. It is added to almost anything and everything. Peanut butter is something that it truly does not need to be added to. It is delicious without it! So why not cut it out where you can.
Palm Fruit(Kernel) Oil
This is another oil that manufacturers add to their peanut butters when the FDA banned trans fats. It is high in the artery-clogging saturated fats. Not only is it not good for you most palm oil in commercial packaged foods are considered “Conflict Palm Oil”. This is a huge environmental issue. The large scale industry is leading to the rainforest destruction and human rights abuses. Carbon emissions related to deforestation in Indonesia (most seeming from palm oil plantation expansion) is greater than all the cars, trucks, planes, and ships in the United States combined. *ran.org It is driving orangutans closer and closer to extinction.
What about Reduced Fat Peanut Butter? Those are better right?
Not necessarily.
What we need to remember is that not all fats are created equal. Some saturated fats can increase the number on the scale while unsaturated fats can actually reduce abdominal fat. On top of that, things with reduced fats often have a lot of additives to make up for the lost off the fat. It is often replaced with sugars and other unhealthy additives like maltodextrin.
Maltodextrin is a caloric sweetener and flavor enhancer. It’s what makes us keep craving the thing we are eating. It is made from rice, potatoes, or more commonly cornstarch. It can raise your blood glucose and insulin levels.
Let’s just take a look at this nutrition label. This is a popular reduced fat peanut butter on the shelves everywhere.
What to we see on that ingredient list? The second listed ingredient corn syrup solids. The third ingredient? Sugar. followed by many other unnecessary ingredients that are almost impossible to pronounce.
Now let’s take a look at a brand that is on the shelves, delicious, and accessible to everyone.
What we see on the ingredient list is just peanuts. This is what we want to see!
Benefits of Homemade?
Now if you are also like me, and are trying to reduce your plastic waste because it is destroying our planet, then you can easily make your own! It is so simple to do and it tastes absolutely delicious. We have been making it for a year now and we absolutely enjoy it. Some of the benefits are no additives. No added sugars. No added salt. And no plastic waste!
How to Make Your Own Homemade Peanut Butter
These are the things you will need:
4 cups of raw organic peanuts
high speed blender
Himalayan salt (optional)
The first thing you want to do is buy bulk organic raw peanuts. If you can buy these using your own cloth bag, even better! It will be 100% zero waste. We have a wonderful store in Springfield, MO that has a large supply of bulk items. We are so lucky to have access to this and not always a luxury that everyone has. We make a couple trips a month down to Springfield to stock up on our bulk goods.
You will want to set your oven to 350º. While that is preheating, get a full size baking sheet and spread out the peanuts to be just one layer deep.
Once you have reached your desired level of roast, pull them out of the oven and let them cool just a little so you can handle them.
Place them into your blender. We have a Vitamix which works wonderfully. I have seen people do this with high speed blenders and even food processors, you will just have to be a little more patient. Then it’s time to let it blend… and blend more… and even more.
You will be able to watch the peanut butter slowly start to take shape as the peanuts break down even further.
And that’s it!
Store your peanut butter in a glass airtight container. It is good in the refrigerator for up to 3 months! If you leave it out at room temperature it will be fine for many weeks. It can go rancid because of the natural oils and no additives (preservatives) but you will smell it. I have not personally run into this issue. But we consume it too fast for that.
Pro Tip
Once you have scooped all the peanut butter out of the blender, and have shared some with your pups, add some frozen fruits and your other smoothie favorites and make a peanut butter smoothie! I love to do a berry and peanut butter smoothie and it tastes like a pb&j sandwich.
I hope you enjoy!
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