Practicing safe sandwich-making isn’t easy. To date, over 300 people in 41 states have been reported sickened by salmonella in peanut butter made by industrial food giant ConAgra Foods, Inc., at their factory in Georgia. How can this happen? Mistakes can not be avoided, but one of the lessons here is that when you put all your eggs in one basket you’d better not drop that basket.
One solution? Decentralize the peanut butter supply. You’ll pay more, but I think it’s worth it and you’ll get a healthier product. Beyond the issue of wholesale contamination (it appears that ConAgra makes all their peanut butter in that one factory), what other advantage is there to shopping smarter and avoiding industrial peanut butter? Take a look at the ingredients.
I went to the ConAgra Web site to see if I could find a list of ingredients for their Peter Pan peanut butter. While looking at the Peter Pan product page I saw no nutritional informaton but I did see a link to a nifty little branch of their Web site called “Eat Well Live Well Choose Well” where they show you how to read a package label. I tried to find the label for their Peter Pan brand peanut butter but I was unable to find labels for this or any other other of their products. Off to the store I went.
I couldn’t find any Peter Pan brand from ConAgra on the shelf, today (perhaps because all of it is made in that one tainted factory?), but regular Skippy and Jiff and also supermarket brands of peanut butter contain hydrogenated oil.
I discovered that industrial peanut butter is one of those foods in which Trans fats are still widely present. Hydrogenated vegetable oil usually contains Trans fat. Check the label.
The oils I found on their peanut butter ingredient lists are cottonseed oil, soy oil, and rapeseed oil. Beyond the concerns about hydrogenation there are many complex arguments that can be made about the nutritional value of these oils — too many to include here. I will highlight one which I believe is significant, as reiterated recently by Dr. Andrew Weil.
“Many nutrition experts believe that before we relied so heavily on processed foods, humans consumed omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids in roughly equal amounts. But to our great detriment, most North Americans and Europeans now get far too much of the omega-6s and not enough of the omega-3s. This dietary imbalance may explain the rise of such diseases as asthma, coronary heart disease, many forms of cancer, autoimmunity and neurodegenerative diseases, all of which are believed to stem from inflammation in the body. The imbalance between omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids may also contribute to obesity, depression, dyslexia, hyperactivity and even a tendency toward violence….
“In general, however, you can cut down on omega-6 levels by reducing consumption of processed and fast foods and polyunsaturated vegetable oils (corn, sunflower, safflower, soy, and cottonseed, for example).”
I’ll breeze past the question of whether we really need sugar in our peanut butter. The food industrialists seem to think they should put sugar or high fructose corn syrup in just about everything they sell. As a responsible parent I “just say no”. I’ll save the question of whether we really benefit from preservatives for a later post.
There is plenty of fine peanut butter on the shelves made with nothing more than roasted peanuts. Why do they even add oil to peanut butter in the first place? One product label explains that they add these other hydrogenated oils to keep the oil from separating out while sitting on the shelf. It’s up to you to decide whether the price you pay for not having to stir the peanut butter before you spread it is that you consume dangerous Trans fats.
Yes, convenience foods are convenient. The important question is, Should we be eating them at all?
My Nutrition Professor, Linda Bacon Ph.D, called a peanut butter manufacturer to ask why did they add oils to peanut butter. The reason she got was that they remove the peanut oil, which they sell and replace it with cheaper oil. So we’re being shortchanged any way you look at it when you by peanut butter with added oils that are surprise surprise–transfats.
michelle
Peanut butter with it’s own peanut oil will separate (oil on top). Thicker (hydrogenated) oils resist seapration.
Excellent observation and glad that you referrenced Dr Andrew Weil’s perspective. I’m very interested in his other insights regarding metabolic diseases like diabetes and his perspective on naturpathic medicine.
Hydrogenated oils as stablizers in peanut butter is not a hard thing to understand. It is not some plot by the big food companies. It is a requirement of the standard of identity in the Federal regulations.
21 CFR – Food and Drugs
PART 164 — TREE NUT AND PEANUT PRODUCTS
§ 164.150 Peanut butter
In part it says:
“Oil products used as optional stabilizing ingredients shall be hydrogenated vegetable oils. For the purposes of this section, hydrogenated vegetable oil shall be considered to include partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.”
Guess what??? This means that if you add any other type of oil (non-hydrogentated) into this product you can’t call it “Peanut Butter”. It is mis-branded and adulterated.
Fully hydrogenated oils have no trans fat. There are no double bonds left and thus no cis or trans fatty acids. Partial hydrogenation is the trans fat villain. So look at the nutrition facts panel if you are concerned about trans fat.
Thank you, Les, for the clarification. I have corrected my entry.
I think that Americans have demand these types of convenience products for a long time now. Food manufactures are responding to that demand. Just look at the popularity of fast/junk food. I really do not think that it is some type of conspiracy to fatten up Americans; it is just a matter of economics. Choose the natural stuff and the food companies will react in kind. I work in the food industry and have been enjoying all natural peanut butter for many years now. Why? It tastes much better. Who cares if you have to stir it a bit…
I only buy organic peanut butter… with peanuts as the only ingredient.
If you stir it and keep it refrigerated, the oil does not resurface. OK…so maybe you have to plan ahead and take it out a litle while before using it so that it softens up a bit, but it’s worth the effort.
~Susan~
I love peanut butter, but I NEVER EVER buy anything but the natural stuff- no sugar, no oils. It just tastes better, and the thing about the separation, there’s such an easy way around it. After you buy the PB, before opening, shake/agitate it, then put it upside down in the refrigerator. By the time it cools down (which causes the oil to solidify) it’s all mixed up.
You might want to go to http://www.randi.org and search on Andrew Weil..I wouldn’t believe a word he says…
Actually, the amount of added saturated fat in peanut butter is usually around 1%, and is the stabilzer that prevents separation. As previously mentioned, completely saturated fat (which is what the stabilizer consists of) has no cis or trans fatty acids.
A much more important concern in peanut butter is aflatoxin…a very potent carcinogen. This toxin is produced by a mold that grows on peanuts while they are in the ground. While USDA allows peanuts to be certified and sold as aflatoxin free if they contain less than 25ppb, FDA requires a level below 20ppb in peanut butter.
The major Peanut Butter manufacturers go to great length and use sophisticated techniques to lower the aflatoxin level even more…most are around 1ppb. However, the levels of aflatoxin in most “natural” peanut butters are purely dependent upon the quality of the peanuts they use, and they usually simply rely on the USDA certification.
While I was working for one of the major PNB manufacturers, we surveyed a large number of both “natural” peanut butters, and peanut butter made in stores by grinding the peanuts yourself.
Results: “Natural” peanut butters averaged around 10ppb, grind it yourself butters around 20ppb (and over half exceeded 50ppb).
My take…if you’re going to eat peanut butter the safest, by far, are the major national brands. I wouldn’t feed natural peanut butter to my family on a bet.
Ken, is there a way for an individual to reduce the aflatoxin levels in home-made peanut butter?
If you want to take the time to hand pick any very dark or obviously moldy peanuts you might make a difference. Aflatoxin contaminated nuts tend to develop a darker color during roasting. One of the techniques used by peanut butter manufacturers to reduce aflatoxin is to use high speed color sorters to remove the bad nuts.
Peanut butter manufacturers do *not* remove peanut oil from peanut butter and replace it with “cheaper” oils. Either the poster misunderstood Dr. Bacon, or Dr. Bacon misunderstood or was given incorrect info. Fully half the weight of “natural” peanut butter is peanut oil, because half the weight of peanuts is fat. A lot of Calories in this yummy food, and most of them from fat. Good thing most (~85%) of the fat is mono- or polyunsaturated, but saturated fat naturally occurring in peanuts comprises about 14% of the weight of peanut fat (hence about 7% of the weight of natural peanut butter). By comparison, the amount of saturated fat added to processed peanut butter to stabilize it is small.