What’s Really in Your Peanut Butter?
There might be something hiding in the ingredients list.
By: Emma Henzes, Syracuse University – June 14, 2017
JIF
Ingredients: Roasted peanuts and sugar. Contains 2% or less of: molasses, fully hydrogenated vegetable oils (rapeseed and soybean), mono and diglycerides, and salt.
Crazy Richards
Ingredient(s): Peanuts
Skippy
Ingredients: Roasted peanuts, sugar, hydrogenated vegetable oil (Cottonseed, Soybean and Rapeseed Oil) to prevent separation, salt.
Nut Butter Nation
Ingredients: Peanuts and salt
Justin’s
Ingredients: Dry roasted peanuts and palm oil
Peter Pan
Ingredients: Rroasted peanuts, corn syrup solids*, soy protein concentrate*, sugar, less than 2% of: hydrogenated vegetable oils (cottonseed and rapeseed), salt, minerals (magnesium oxide, zinc oxide, iron phosphate, copper sulfate) and vitamins(niacin, vitamin b6, folic acid)
Trader Joe’s
Ingredients: Roasted Peanuts, Powdered Sugar (Cane Sugar, Cornstarch), Sustainable Palm Oil, Sea Salt
So, all in all, it’s best to look at the ingredients before choosing your peanut butter. Don’t be fooled by the labels that boast about being all natural. Decide for yourself, and look at the label. If you couldn’t create it in your own kitchen, would you really want it in your body?
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5 Healthier Spreads to Slather on Your Toast — With No Added Sugar, Salt or Chemicals
Your toast toppings just got a healthy makeover.
Fruit Spread
Fruit jams/spreads are traditionally thickened with pectin (a compound naturally occurring in fruit). However, most jams contain lots of added sugar. Brands like Smucker’s use sugar as well as corn syrup, while some others are slightly better, using less or organic sugar. However, if you can achieve the same, if not better taste, without adding any sugar, why not? Rigoni di Asiago‘s fruit spreads contain only organic fruits and pectin.
Almond Butter
Many almond butters contain added sugar, salt, and various flavors like vanilla, blueberry, “cake batter”, and more. Almonds actually have a naturally sweet taste, so we are a big fan of brands that make almond butter from 100% almonds, like Woodstock Foods.
Peanut Butter
Many of us grew up eating Jif peanut butter which contains both sugar and salt, amongst other additives like diglycerides and hydrogenated vegetable oils. Many newer brands now make more natural peanut butter with no added oil by using — you guessed it — ground peanuts. Some of them still contain salt, however. But brands like Crazy Richard’s has one single ingredient: peanuts. And we dig it.
Coconut Butter
Many of us are going (coco)nuts over this delicious spread, but some coconut butters sold in store contain ingredients like sugar (or coconut sugar), salt, vanilla extract, and more. While things like coconut sugar are not necessarily bad for us, why add these when coconuts, like almonds, have a naturally sweet taste? Brands like Essentially Coconut make their coconut butter using only, well, coconuts, as they should.
“Syrup”
Like dousing your French toasts with maple syrup? Try using Rigoni di Asiago‘s Dolcedi – a low GI sweetener made with only one single ingredient: organic apples. It has a syrupy consistency and comes in a squeeze bottle perfect for drizzling, but it is made entirely from concentrated apple juice and contains no traditional sugar or other additives.
Achieving a healthy and balanced lifestyle takes time, and we can start from swapping out spreads that contain unnecessary ingredients for these healthy and great-tasting ones: one spoonful at a time.