Purely Nourished

Peanuts have long been an impor­tant ingre­di­ent in the diets of peo­ple around the world for every­thing from peanut infused dishes to peanut but­ter and jelly sand­wiches. Peanut but­ter itself was devel­oped by J.H. Kel­logg at the turn of the twen­ti­eth cen­tury and pack­aged to sell com­mer­cially in 1922. Since then the pro­duc­tion and con­sump­tion of peanut but­ter has only increased.

Today, new ver­sions of the nut but­ter have been cre­ated to pro­vide improved sources of nutri­tion and to present peo­ple suf­fer­ing from a peanut allergy with alter­na­tives to sat­isfy their cravings.

Almond but­ter is the sec­ond most pop­u­lar nut but­ter found at the gro­cery store great for dip­ping pret­zels and adding to hot break­fast cereal. Sun but­ter is also a great option if  nuts can­not be tol­er­ated. The world of nut and seed but­ters is grow­ing, so exper­i­ment with dif­fer­ent but­ters to find the one that works best for you and your fam­ily. Like more than one, even better!

Photo by Jennifer McKinney

Alter­na­tive Nut/Seed Butters

• Almond but­ter is known for its cal­cium, mag­ne­sium, potas­sium, pro­tein, vit­a­min E and arginin¹ con­tent. It makes a great alter­na­tive to peanut but­ter, as well as a base for soups, sauces, and dips.
• Macadamia Nut but­ter is sweet with and oily tex­ture.  Add this but­ter as a dress­ing to sal­ads, stews, rice dishes, and desserts. It is high in thi­amin, pro­tein, flavenoids² and omega 3³.
• Cashew but­ter is high in cal­cium, iron, pro­tein, mag­ne­sium, the “B” vit­a­mins and zinc. It is most pop­u­lar for its use in Indian dishes and cur­ries as well as a main ingre­di­ent in soup, sauce, and dip.
• Pump­kin seed but­ter is known for its iron, zinc, potas­sium and pro­tein con­tent and can be used as a base for soups, sauces, and dips.
• Hazel­nut but­ter is high in sele­nium, zinc, potas­sium, iron and pro­tein. It adds sweet and rich fla­vor to savory dishes, includ­ing breads, cook­ies, cakes, pilafs, sal­ads, stuff­ing, and veg­etable and grain dishes.
• Wal­nut but­ter is known for its omega-3³ con­tent, as well as Linoleic Acid, Mag­ne­sium, Folate, Cal­cium, Folic Acid, and vit­a­min B6. It is eas­ily spread­able and extremely ver­sa­tile. Add this but­ter to desserts, sal­ads, and side dishes for a per­fect com­bi­na­tion of taste and nutrition.

1. arginin –may play an impor­tant role in pre­vent­ing heart disease

2. flavenoids — may help reduce the risk of some can­cers and heart disease

3. omega 3 — thought to reduce the risk of heart dis­ease and high blood pressure

A healthy diet must pro­vide a proper bal­ance of essen­tial nutri­ents, while con­tribut­ing a rich sup­ply of vit­a­mins, min­er­als, and micro-nutrients. The food you put in your body each and every day deter­mines your sati­ety, mood, clar­ity, and energy level.  Your body thrives when it gets the best fuel. It is not enough to pur­chase and eat foods high in com­plex car­bo­hy­drates, fiber and pro­teins. You must also pay atten­tion to harm­ful addi­tives, as they can com­pletely destroy the nutri­tion in your food. Why would you waste money on items that could end up being harm­ful to your body. The great­est wealth is health. I would agree Vir­gil was a smart man when he said that. When you have your health you are more ener­gized, emo­tion­ally sta­ble and you save thou­sands of dol­lars on health care and insur­ance because your body is in tip top condition.

The term whole foods refers to unprocessed food with noth­ing added or removed from it. These foods are more health­ful because they do not con­tain poten­tially harm­ful ingre­di­ents. They are in nature’s purest form and come equipped with the vit­a­mins, min­er­als, and enzymes good for proper diges­tion and nutri­tion. Plant foods in their whole and com­plete form are loaded with phyto-chemicals. These nat­u­rally occur­ring chem­i­cal com­pounds are known to help pre­vent dis­ease and main­tain health in the body. When food is processed it looses many of its impor­tant vit­a­mins and min­er­als, there­fore it’s ben­e­fits. Foods that have had part of their form removed are frag­mented foods. Refined grains are a good exam­ple of a frag­mented food. In a refined grain, the bran, or outer shell of the grain, is removed, thus remov­ing a por­tion of their nutri­tional value. Why would you want to con­sume a food that is not in it’s most pure form? I’s kinda like try­ing to put together a puz­zle with miss­ing pieces, you never see the com­plete pic­ture and it’s not worth it.  Just as you cant get the whole pic­ture out of a puz­zle with miss­ing pieces you cant expect to have com­plete nutri­tion with frag­mented foods. I know it is dif­fi­cult to eat whole foods 100% of the time, as we are all human. Try eat­ing whole foods 80% of the time. I am cer­tain you will notice a dif­fer­ence in your body and begin to pre­fer whole foods over highly processed versions.

Food addi­tives and arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents are placed in foods to increase shelf life, facil­i­tate food prepa­ra­tion, and to make food more appeal­ing by enhanc­ing color, tex­ture, and taste. Cer­tain addi­tives are derived from nat­ural sources while oth­ers are made syn­thet­i­cally. Addi­tives and arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents add lit­tle or no nutri­tional value to to a food prod­uct and can be a poten­tial threat to your health. Accord­ing to var­i­ous stud­ies, the aver­age Amer­i­can con­sumes over 100lbs a year of addi­tives and new stud­ies sug­gest that that con­sump­tion has a direct affect on can­cer rates. When choos­ing foods, check the food labels and avoid foods with arti­fi­cial ingre­di­ents. If you must buy processed food, choose ones that con­tain all nat­ural ingredients.

More qual­ity food equals a more qual­ity life. Why not strive to put only the best nutri­tion in your body? You only have one, so treat it with respect and TLC.