Tag: peanut butter

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Ask Juls Diet

Ask Juls – What To Look For In Peanut Butter?

Selecting The Right Peanut Butter | Peanuts aren't actually Nuts, but legumes. If you're a spoonie living the chronic life, you should probably avoid them. Read more on the blog itsjustabadday.com

I published a post a few months back “Is Natural Peanut Butter Healthy?” and it’s received a lot of hits. Because I received a few questions regarding selecting the right peanut butter, I decided to make an Ask Juls video on the topic!

 

What To Look For In Peanut Butter?
  1. Selecting The Right Peanut Butter | Peanuts aren't actually Nuts, but legumes. If you're a spoonie living the chronic life, you should probably avoid them. Read more on the blog itsjustabadday.comLook at the ingredients!! (Remember this video??) You don’t want soy and other ‘crap’ in your peanut butter. Peanut butter really should (ideally) be Peanuts, a natural form of sweetener and sea salt!
  2. If it includes soybean oil or just says ‘sugar’, make sure it’s ORGANIC and NONGMO. Otherwise, you’ll just be getting genetically modified food like substances. Forget the protein, you’re really not doing your body any good-by eating these ‘foods’.
  3. If you want your peanut butter sweetened – look for peanut butter sweetened with stevia, honey, maple syrup, palm fruit oil, agave or a natural form sugar. AVOID peanut butters that have High Fructose Corn Syrup, Fructose or Sugar in the ingredient list.
  4. If you like your peanut butter salted – look for sea salt or pink himalayan salt. Or, get an unsalted peanut butter and throw your own sea salt in it at home!
Wait, Peanuts Aren’t Nuts?

It’s important to note that peanuts are NOT a nut, but a legume. Legumes, according to this Ultimate Paleo Guide’s  “What The Hell Is A Legume”, “is a simple, dry fruit contained within a shed or a pod. The most well-known legumes are peas, beans, peanuts, and alfalfa”.

Peanuts really aren’t the greatest thing for you to be eating. If you have a normal/healthy digestive tract (which I’m willing to bet 90% of people DON’T) then eating peanut butter in moderation may be fine. Otherwise, it’s really hard on our digestive tract and truly can cause a bunch of problems.

A Bit About Legumes

Legumes are not the best for your gut if you’re trying to heal it. Therefore, if you have autoimmunity I would suggest you steer clear of legumes (and all grains)… but that’s a whole different video for another day. To read up on WHY (until I make that video of course 😉 haha) Check out this Paleo Magazine article called ‘Spilling The Beans’ or check out this post Why Even Organic Peanut Butter Is Bad For You.

I will say this . . . on my own health and diet adventure I didn’t start off by avoiding grains and legumes. It can be extremely hard to cut these AND everything else out of your diet. Therefore, I always advise my clients to start with a normal elimination diet. After they go through that process, then they can flirt with the idea of cutting grains and legumes out. An Integrative Medicine Doctor that I’ve seen shared with me that autoimmune patients almost ALWAYS do better cutting them out. As much as I wish I didn’t agree with her, I do. It’s sad because when I “cheat” I’ll have a cupcake with rice flour or something that has gluten free grains in it. I ALWAYS notice a difference. For me, grains and legumes cause inflammation which ends up sucking my energy. The next day I’ll always have a headache and be very fatigued. So, if fatigue is a big issue for you in your autoimmunity, I HIGHLY suggest cutting these out along with the usual offenders – dairy, gluten, soy, corn, refined sugar, etc.

So to eat peanut butter or not eat peanut butter? If you’re thinking about purely the taste, then there are no arguments! But, if you have autoimmunity and/or leaky gut you need to proceed with caution! In any case, if you decide to eat peanut butter remember the tips I gave you above!

 

Wishing You A Pain Free Day!

Julie Cerrone | Spoonie, Autoimmune Warrior, Certified Holistic Health Coach, DoTerra Wellness Advocate, 200 RYT Trainee, Reiki 1, Nutrition Geek, ePatient Advocate, IT Consultant, Pittsburgh Based Practitioner Living the Chronic Life

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Autoimmune Diet Wellness Wednesday

Natural Peanut Butter, Is It ‘Natural’? #WellnessWednesday

When you have a chronic condition, it’s extremely important that you feed your body the right fuel that it needs. When you add in extra toxins, it makes an already compromised environment even more compromised!

So, natural peanut butter… it has to be healthy, right?

I mean it says ‘Natural’. It has to be all natural . . . righttttttt?

WRONGGGGGGG.

Let’s take a look at this Jiff Natural Peanut Butter.

IMG_8566

When I look at this packaging, the following jump out at me:
  • The word ‘Natural’
  • Contains 90% Peanuts
  • Sugar and Palm Oil
  • Molasses
Not on the packaging, but here’s a post from Snack Girl on the difference between the Natural Jif Peanut Butter and the Regular Ol’ Jif Peanut Butter.
What does the word ‘Natural’ on packaging mean?

It doesn’t mean what you probably think it means. And nope, choosing packages that say natural and all natural reallllllly isn’t choosing the ‘healthiest’ option.

NATURAL: Currently, no standards exist for this label except when used on meat and poultry products. USDA guidelines state that “natural” meat and poultry products can only undergo minimal processing and cannot contain artificial colors, artificial flavors, preservatives, or other artificial ingredients. However, “natural” foods are not necessarily sustainable, organic, humanely raised, or free of hormones and antibiotics. (Adapted from www.sustainabletable.org | © Institute for Integrative Nutrition | Used with permission)

Well, it contains 90% Peanuts! That’s good right?

Yes, yes it is good! I mean, hellllllllllllloooo, it’s peanut butter. You legit make peanut butter by blending peanuts up… so, shouldn’t it be like 99.9% peanuts?

Sugar and Palm Oil

So sugar and palm oil, eh?

In the Snack Girl post above you can learn more about palm oil, but sugar… is sugar natural? Well, it can be. If you notice the ‘Molasses’ ingredient in the list, you’ll see that there is a little bit of sugar coming from a more ‘natural’ source. But let’s look further into this ‘sugar’ ingredient.

Where does sugar usually come from?

There are a ton of sources sugar can come from. Sure, maybe it’s pure cane sugar, but let’s get real. Did you know that pretty much 100% of sugar beet crops are genetically modified? And did you also know that if the ingredient is listed as ‘sugar’ it’s pretty much a sure bet that at least the majority of that sugar is coming from sugar beets? (Read more here from the Organic & NonGMO Report) If you don’t believe me, call the company and ask them where their sugar is from.

So, Jif . . . I have to ask? How on earth do you consider genetically modified sugar to be ‘natural’?

I’d love to know!

nutbutter

What you should look for when you’re looking for a natural peanut butter solution:
  • First off, if you have an autoimmune disease I actually suggest you do not consume peanut butter. I say this because peanuts are actually not considered nuts, but legumes. There are proteins within legumes, grains and some veggies (like nightshade vegetables) which are extremely hard to digest. When you have a normal functioning digestive system, you may be able to eat these foods without any problem. BUT, when you have a compromised immune system – aka, leaky gut – you should really remove these proteins from your diet.
  • “Natural Peanut Butters” usually contain at least 90% peanuts and do not contain artificial sweeteners, colors or preservatives . . . but inspect the ingredients. Just like the Jif ingredients, they claim to have no artificial sweeteners, but to me how is genetically modified sugar NOT artificial? The damage that those genetically modified molecules are doing to our bodies hasn’t been researched in long-term studies.
  • Look for PB that has sea salt in it, if any salt at all.
  • Peanut butters sweetened with honey are great options. If you want your PB sweet, look for AT THE VERY LEAST organic sugar. That way, you know you’re not getting GMO sugar, but organic sugar cane.
  • The best natural PBs contain peanuts and that’s it!

So be on the look out for what ingredients are in your nut butters. The same issues occur with ALL nut butters, not just peanut butters!

Also, think about the jelly you’re putting on your PB&J too 😉 You don’t want jellies that contain a TON of sugar. The best “jellies” are just smashed up fruit! It’s delicious – I promise you’ll love it.

Wishing You A Pain Free Day!

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Categories
Chew On This! Dessert Diet It's Just A Bad Day Treatments

Chew On This: Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups

I needed to make a dessert to take to a picnic this month and wasn’t sure what to make. My requirements were

1. Had to be super easy

2. Had to use ingredients I already had on hand

3. Had to be delicious

So, I started looking through the pantry to see what I had on hand. I came across some chocolate and peanuts and decided I was going to make some little chocolate peanut butter cups. The end result was yummy and I’d most definitely make these again!

 

Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
30 Chocolate PB Cups 5 Mins
Cook Time
5 Mins
Servings Prep Time
30 Chocolate PB Cups 5 Mins
Cook Time
5 Mins
Chocolate Peanut Butter Cup
Print Recipe
Servings Prep Time
30 Chocolate PB Cups 5 Mins
Cook Time
5 Mins
Servings Prep Time
30 Chocolate PB Cups 5 Mins
Cook Time
5 Mins
Ingredients
Servings: Chocolate PB Cups
Instructions
  1. Put all ingredients into a high powered blender. Blend away!
  2. Adjust the taste to your sweetness, chocolate-ness and peanut butter-ness liking!
  3. Line mini muffin tins with cupcake liners. Pour mixture into each liner.
  4. Press an Enjoylife Chocolate Chunk into the middle of each cup! Sprinkle melted Enjoylife Chocolate on the top of each.
  5. Place in fridge and chill until solid. Enjoy!!
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Enjoy! If you make them leave a comment on what you thought and if you made any changes 🙂

Wishing You A Pain Free Day!

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