“No sugar added” peanut butter, made with legumes, may still be quite low in carbs, but it is made with oils that are more likely unsaturated or transfats. This whole thing with unsaturated, saturated and trans fats is hard for me to get my head around, but when I saw a picture, it all make a bit more sense. I still don’t understand the chemical formula and what exactly is going on, but when you see it like this, you get a mental idea of what is looks like:
The whole explanation is found at Authority Nutrition. The photo came from Chemistry Basics.
So this is why vegetable oils are bad. Traditional peanut butter is made with vegetable oils, so that’s why it’s not great.
Since the big drive towards sugar free and low carb has taken off in South Africa, many companies are realising the need to cater for the increasing number of Banters. The only problem is that the dieticians or nutritionists they are employing to oversee their products don’t appear to know the finer details of what’s healthy and what’s not. My friend Trish posted these startling photos to Facebook as an example as to what I mean. At first glance, it appears Clicks is coming to the Banting party and catering for new and healthier needs…
But flipping the jar over to read the ingredients, you immediately see the problem…
Hydrogenated vegetable fat! That’s what’s making your toxic bonds from our picture! Then add “may be genetically modified” and we really don’t want to eat this. It was the same with the macadamia nut butter…
The ingredients…
It may be 98% or 99% good stuff, but it’s the 1-2% carcinogenic stuff that will do the harm. This is like making a really lovely batch of Banting chocolate brownies and putting in 1 or 2% of dog poop. You won’t even taste it, but it’s there! It may not even do any harm once off, but eaten again and again over a long period of time is where the problem lies.
There is an easier (and cheaper) way of making nut butter. Simply buy the nuts raw and put them in a food processor. If you want quite a nutty consistency, process for 3 minutes. For a smoother consistency process for longer. Simple as that and the cost is as much as the cost of the nuts. Lean towards using almonds or macadamia nuts.
These days we are being bombarded with what is right and wrong as far as what we eat. I sit between a number of close family members who are sceptics when it comes to Banting, specially with the idea that cholesterol is a good thing. But one thing none of the critics can argue with is the dangers of excessive sugar and the badness of vegetable oils, used over and over again in a diet of fried and fast foods as well as biscuits and baked pastries that are loaded with unsaturated and transfats.
So take care and read the labels.
And while you are taking care of what you eat, take care of what you believe.
Galatians 5:9
False teaching is like a little yeast that spreads through the whole batch of dough!
God bless!
In His Grip,
Helga x