Best Food Supplements For Women » Blog Archive » What Happened To My Peanut Butter Sandwich?

What Happened To My Peanut Butter Sandwich?

11 May 2010

Written by my guest columnist, my husband Al

Hi, I’ll bet that many of you had the same experiences with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and may even have carried on the tradition with your own kids, as did Sandy and I.

Day after day, I walked to school, carrying my sandwich in my lunch bag. It always tasted good, and I still enjoy this delicacy (though not every day for lunch.) Being interested in the healthfulness of what I eat, I recently Googled for a listing of FDA recalls. If you haven’t visited the FDA Recall site, you might find that this search provides a real education. Just Google for the FDA Recall site and then type in the title of the article listed here. (I’d put in the URL, but it is so long that it took up 25 lines when I pasted it in here!) When I reached the site, one title popped out in full splendor. “Peanut Butter and other Peanut Containing Products Recall List.” RECALL LIST??? A list of peanut butter and peanut containing food that were contaminated. How can this be? How can any self respecting American peanut butter producer contaminate this long revered food? Here is what I found.

BEWARE, IT MAY BE CONTIMATED - In 2009, one company, Peanut Corporation of America (PCA) produced peanut butter products that were ingredients in many, very many, human and pet foods. PCA products were ingredients in everything from a jar of peanut butter to ice cream, cookies, cereals and the list goes on. It is hard to believe, but between January and November 2009, over 3,980 different human and pet food products ingredients were contaminated with salmonella and recalled. In the meantime, it appears that PCA had declared bankruptcy. I hope that I can soon forget this threat to my simple enjoyment of a sandwich.

MY SEARCH FOR INGREDIENT INFORMATION - I’m not paranoid, but I am curious so I searched the FDA recall site for Peanut butter brands that we use; ah relief ! No recalls of these brands. However, this exercise got me thinking about product ingredients, what they are, why they are included, and are they healthy. I looked at the labels of a number of brands of peanut butter. For years I looked at peanut butter labels to verify two and only two ingredients. This is because my nutritional guru, my wife, told me not to buy a jar if I saw more than these two ingredients – peanut butter and salt. Now I began to focus on the presence, purpose, and value of the other ingredients. So how would you like to join me in learning a bit more about what many food processors are doing to my plain old yummy Peanut Butter? I’m still scratching my head… see if this makes sense to you.

A common additive (ingredient) in peanut butters is Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils. I Googled to find out the function and values of these oils in my peanut butter. First, I had to learn the differences between the following ingredients, partially hydrogenated oil and fully hydrogenated oil. Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oil is used to prevent separation of the peanut oil from the peanut butter. The hydrogenated oil makes the oil (fat) more solid and easier to spread. Without going into a lengthy presentation that I found, the bottom line answered my question concerning value. Fully hydrogenated fats are less harmful than partially hydrogenated fats. However, my feeling is that just by breathing, eating, and drinking water I involuntarily ingest enough unhealthful materials that I certainly don’t choose to add to them and consider a less harmful choice. Peanut butter should never be harmful not just less so!

Another common ingredient is sugar. Estimates are that the average American consumes approximately 150 pounds of sugar each year. The majority of this for many people comes from sources beyond the sugar that they knowingly add to coffee or in cooking and baking. It includes the hidden sugar content in virtually all processed foods, including peanut butter. Why peanut butter? I love the wonderful taste unadulterated by sugar! Also, if I combine it with jelly in a sandwich I get all of the sweet that I want from the jelly. Some brands list Molasses in lieu of sugar. Molasses is derived from sugar and is a bit healthier because it has some nutrients that are missing in table sugar. So I guess sugar or molasses are ingredients because everything has to be sweeter so that we will crave sweet things and consume more of them. Being aware of the nutritional negatives of sugar, I limit it and don’t want it added to my peanut butter.

A last ingredient that I’ll address in this blog is diglycerides. These are more fats that emulsify to make it easier to spread. I limit the amount of peanut butter that I enjoy because of the added calories from fat, but it appears that this unnatural additive is included to make the peanut butter spread more easily. Wait a minute…the whole mystique of spreading peanut butter is learning how to get it to spread without tearing up the bread. That is part of the charm!

Now, you may be reading this blog and thinking, “Gee, this 77 year old guy just can’t keep up with the times”, but my bottom line is that Peanut Butter has always tasted great without sugar and I”ve always spread it without additional fats. And, related on not, I attribute my health (for example, not a single prescription for close to 20 years) in part to careful food selection using real honest foods.

Thanks Sandy for letting me be your guest blogger this time. I know you want to put in your two cents as well, so have at it!

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Thanks Al, I will. There are so many adulterated and contaminated foods and even food supplements out there that it is important to be vigilant about reading labels. Try to buy food with the fewest ingredients in them if they are packaged, and shop mostly the outside edge of the store where more of the healthier foods are stocked.

Make sure that your supplement company has never had to recall any supplement for toxicity or contamination. One brand of multivitamin-multiminerals for general use…men and women…had erectile disfunction medication mixed in with the vitamins. Know your company and know how much they test.

Now let’s all go have an organic peanut butter and maybe a banana instead of jelly with it on the whole grain bread! Yummy.

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# 11 May 2010 at 6:41 am

Val Wilcox said:

Sandy & Al,
Wow, lots of info that I didn’t know about something so simple as peanut butter! Jesh, what happened to wholesome foods? You bring up a very good point about checking into every ingredient to understand what you really are consuming.

Makes you ponder,
Val
Val Wilcox´s last blog ..Along The Path of Self Discovery…

What Happened To My Peanut Butter Sandwich?

Written by my guest columnist, my husband Al

25 Comments »

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