Hello, welcome back to Health Unwrapped. We took a break from this series last month for Recipe A Day May, but this month, we’re back and the ingredient of choice is a personal favourite – nut butter. So, is nut butter bad for you? It’s a common dessert ingredient, it’s fatty and creamy, so it’s understandable that it gets a bad reputation sometimes, but is it really that bad?
I want to start this by saying not all nut butters are made equally, and I hate to say it, but price plays a massive role here. Cheaper peanut butters are often filled with palm oil, salt, sugar and sometimes other additives too. The more mid-priced and premium options are usually either 100% nuts, or 99% nuts and 1% salt. I don’t think I need to explain which ones are the healthier options.
But let’s take a look at this, because it doesn’t have to be eye wateringly more expensive. Tesco sell Tesco own brand PB for £1.40, which is full of all of the aforementioned not so great ingredients, but their cheapest offering that’s 100% peanuts is £1.75 for the same sized jar. Of course, peanut butter is usually the cheapest of nut butters and you’ll pay more for almond or cashew, but it’s not always drastically more to get the higher quality option.
Suggested Recipe: Peanut Butter Chocolate Overnight Protein Pot
Why is nut butter good for you?
Let’s start with the basics of what nut butter is. Nuts made into a fatty paste, essentially. But those fats are the same fats you would get from eating the nuts, just in a more concentrated form.
The vitamins present in your nut butter are the exact same ones present in the whole nuts. They’re a healthy fat, rather than being high in saturated and trans fats. And it’s an incredibly easy way to add fats to your diet if that’s something you struggle with.
By now I think we all know that we have to add fats to our diets to keep them balanced. A meal with protein, carbs and fats will be more satiating and likely keep you satisfied for longer.
And then, most importantly, some vitamins and minerals are fat soluble. Fat soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K) will absorb better when fat is consumed with them. So, as an example, all of those good vitamins you want from your kale salad will be better absorbed if your salad has a fatty dressing, or another fat source in it, like nuts or seeds.
If you eat a traditionally quick and carb centric breakfast, like oatmeal or toast, fruit and yoghurt etc, adding a spoon of nut butter is a really easy change to make without having to make any big changes to your regularly consumed meals, but it makes it more balanced and gets a few extra vitamins in.
Suggested Recipe: Peanut Butter Smoothie Bowl
Why is nut butter bad for you?
I’ve just been talking about the perks of nut butter being that it’s a really easy way to add fat to your diet, which is exactly why it gets a bad reputation sometimes.
Some people look at it as a food that’s 75% fat and just see fat, and empty calories that are very easy to add up in small quantities. Nut butters are really easy to overindulge in if you’re prone to eating it regularly without paying too much attention to serving sizes. If you’re trying to be mindful of your calorie intake, nut butter might not be the best. Despite the calories per gram being almost identical to nuts, you’re much more likely to eat nuts as a whole serving/ as a snack and nut butter more as an add-on. And a serving of nuts is going to be more filling than a tbsp of nut butter is.
Add in the fact it’s creamy, and is often used in desserts, it’s easy to see it as something sweet and indulgent and ignore that it has some health benefits too.
Suggested Recipe: PBJ Oatmeal
So, is nut butter bad for you?
No, not really. As long as you’re not eating jar after jar, it’s a great way to add some healthy fats to your diet. Adding a tsp of almond butter to your morning toast adds 32 calories, 1.1g of protein, ½ a gram of fibre and 10% of the RDA of vitamin E. That’s not a huge amount of anything, but that and the just under 3g of healthy fat is still better than the plain bowl of oats would be and a really easy way to add a little boost.
How do you add your healthy fats to your diet?
Until next time,
Sophie
Thanks for summarizing it! My hubby likes the cheapest peanut butter that he grew up with. But I think it’s time to switch his mindset for better options!
So having read this, I went and made a peanut butter sandwich. So pleased I was to read that nut butters (good quality in sensible portions) is good for me.
I really like almond butter, I put them in my smoothies, but I think it is so important to have everything in moderation!
This is a really interesting post! Personally I’m not a fan of peanut butter but it was interesting reading about the pros and cons. Thanks for sharing!
I love nut butters! The Pip n Nut butters are my favourite!
Molly xx
https://volumesofbeauty.com
I’m not that sophisticated when it comes to nut butters! Peanut butter and banana on wholemeal toast is lush for breakfast. I happen to agree that nut butters are nutritious and as long as we’re not devouring the whole jar, as you say, why not?! I will be more mindful to consider buying more premium brands for higher nutritional content in future though.
I think everything is to do with sizing amounts, if you eat a whole jar in one sitting I can see how it would be bad for you. Everything in moderation! X
I love nut butters! Yes, you can get carried away, but they are a tasty and easy source of both good fats and a few grams of protein. Win win for me! I usually pair my but butter with a buckwheat bread or oatmeal and it makes for a great breakfast–tasty and filling.
Thanks for this informative post on nut butters. I love them and am careful not to overindulge as my family Dr says that nuts are loaded with cholesterol (even though the label says 0 cholesterol). Who knew!
I’ve actually recently started to have some but butters and price was one thing that I really noticed. Thanks for explaining the fat difference because that actually helps me so much. Great post x
This was really interesting. I’d never really thought about what goes in to the different brands of nut butter before. I’m definitely going to delve more into the ingredients list when I next pick some up.
Thanks for sharing this sweetie!
Danielle | thereluctantblogger.co.uk
I love to eat peanut butter, but this combination of cocoa and peanut sounds very delicious. I would like to try it.
http://www.exclusivebeautydiary.com
I am not a fan of peanut butter haha. Tasted it once and I never went back to it again hahaha. I don’t think peanut butter is bad as long as it is taken in healthy proportions. Great post x
I love almond butter on my apples or a light swipe across a fresh piece of bread and always try to buy a brand that uses as much nut as possible. While that does make almond butter more expensive, peanut butter is usually pretty cheap.
In the wrong quantities, anything can be bad. Love this breakdown of nut butter, though I cannot say I have ever heard of the conception that nut butter is unhealthy!
Thanks for sharing. 🙂
This is a good summary! I know that one of the ingredients added to the cheaper peanut butters is deadly to dogs – I forget the name now, but since the natural but butter with no additives we buy is free of things like that I don’t feel so bad if the kids sneak a bit of peanut butter toast to the dog or the dog snatches some leftover crust off the table after breakfast, haha! It really isn’t that much more expensive either as you pointed out. definitely easy to eat too much though, so tasty!
Hope you have a great weekend ahead of you! It’s a fun one here with kids birthday parties 🙂
I didn’t consider nut butter being bad for your health, but it’s good to know that in moderation it isn’t bad! I love making a peanut butter banana smoothie
This is a really helpful post and I think with anything, it’s important to eat it all in moderation xx
Such an interesting post! I’m not a big fan of nut butter, but it was good to know about its benefits 🙂
It’s good to know portion size when having foods that may now be the best. I would like to try out this product.
Thanks for all this info, very thorough and easy to understand! I guess the bottom line with nut butters, as with most things, is you should eat it in moderation. It’s very good, but you should definitely not eat jar after jar!
This was so informative, yet again!! I’ve been reintroducing healthy fats into my diet the last couple of months, and I need to bring nut butters back–I’d like to start putting them in my smoothies or my oats x
I love nut butters especially almond butter and it’s good to know that as long as you’re buying a higher quality brand that it’s not bad for you. Like all things moderation is key!
Tracy
https://www.findyourdazzle.com