Remember this post? It’s from over a year ago but it highlights an excellent source of protein – peanut butter! 🥜🥜🥜
Peanut butter was likely made by Myan Indians many years ago, but the first time it was introduced to the United States was at the St Louis World Fair in 1904. A physician had developed peanut butter as a healthy protein that could be given to people who couldn’t chew very well. Later, soldiers during World War 2 used peanut butter as a protein source when meat was scarce.
Nowadays kids, teens, parents, and the elderly all share a love for that creamy (or crunchy) delight. In fact, it is estimated that the average American eats 6 pounds of peanut product each year!
Did you know? It takes 540 peanuts to make a 12- ounce jar of peanut butter! That’s a lot of peanuts!
Quick Tip: Look at the ingredient label at the grocery store with your parents. Some companies like to add a lot of sugar and additives, but it is better to find a peanut butter with an ingredient list showing: “Peanuts” or “Peanuts, and salt”, as the ingredients.
Peanuts (and several other nuts) are:
- Full of protein– Peanut butter is a great plant based protein that is easy to add to recipes and snacks to help build muscle and other tissues in your body. 2 Tb of peanut butter has the same amount of protein as a whole cup of milk!
- Fiber: If you aren’t getting enough fiber in your diet, you might want to reassess! Fiber keeps your gut healthy and strong so that your body digests foods easier. It also keeps your heart healthy, and can help prevent diseases such as heart disease and colon cancer.
- Healthy fats- Believe it or not there are good and bad fats! The worst fat (one that you want to avoid completely) is trans fat. Saturated fat is another one that is not as good for your and should be limited in your diet. On the other hand, unsaturated fats can help with your body’s metabolism, and peanut butter has more than double the unsaturated fats than saturated!
- A healthy source of calories but be careful of overdoing it! Remember how there are 540 peanuts in 12 ounces of peanut butter? That makes this treat pretty high in calories (2 Tb is about 190 calories)
- Vitamins and Minerals: Peanuts have several vitamins and minerals including biotin, manganese niacin, folate, vitamin E, copper, and thiamine.
C
We have all tried the classic PB & J but here are some other healthy ways to try Peanut Butter:
- Add 1-2 Tb in a smoothie
- Make a peanut butter and fruit sandwich (use apple slices, banana slices, or any other whole fruit that you like)
- Use as a dip for fruits and veggies
- Make oatmeal peanut butter energy balls for an easy snack to grab on the go (look for the recipe this week)
- Use to make a peanut sauce for pasta dishes
- Put in parfaits
- Put on oatmeal
What is your favorite way to eat peanut butter?
C
There really isn’t a wide variety of peanut butter types (aside from smooth and crunchy), but if you want to try some other nut or seed butters here are a few:
- Almond butter
- Soynut butter
- Cashew butter
- Sunflower seed butter
- Hazelnut butter
C
