Peanut butter
Peanut butter
Here’s the full list of ingredients for Jif:
Made from Roasted Peanuts and Sugar, Contains 2% or Less of: Molasses, Fully Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils (Rapeseed and Soybean), Mono and Diglycerides, Salt.
www.foodsco.net/p/…/0005150024191
It’s not just peanuts but it’s not really “preservatives and shit” either.
Preservative refers to a substance that inhibits spoilage, decay, discoloration or other drops in quality.
It’s one way to increase shelf life.
A stabilizer isn’t a preservative because oil separation doesn’t impact quality, shelf life or anything like that.
it’s not the preservatives, it’s the hydrogenated oils that are added - basically they substitute some of the peanut oil that would separate out for oils that won’t separate (and stay hard, like a butter or like margarine)
even the “healthy” no-stir peanut butters do this
gamintraveler.com/…/why-you-cant-really-find-amer…
The problem is that much of what Spain sells as peanut butter is built around the European expectation:
simpler ingredients
fewer sweeteners
“natural” separation accepted as normal
The EU keeps strict maximum levels for contaminants in foods, including aflatoxins. Commission Regulation (EU) 2023/915 sets tight contaminant limits, and the EU’s own 2023 summary notes that maximum levels are set at strict levels considered reasonably achievable.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aflatoxin
Aflatoxins are various poisonous carcinogens and mutagens that are produced by certain molds, especially Aspergillus species such as Aspergillus flavus and Aspergillus parasiticus.
Lol. I reas the article, and:
SKIPPY Smooth 1.13 kg is listed at €19.50
😳 Who the hell buys more than one kg of peanut butter??
lots of US peanut butters are “no-stir” by substituting some of the oil with basically a margarine-like fat (solid, hydrogenated oils replace some of the peanut oil so that the oil never separates and needs to be stirred in again)
If you use normal peanut butter, here are some tips I’ve found:
But I also just eat the no-stir hydrogenated peanut butter now because it’s extremely cheap and I’m unemployed.
The cheap off-brand no-stir peanut butter I eat is $1.50 / lb ($0.35 / 100 g), the nice organic peanut butter I like to buy is $7.65 / lb ($1.69 / 100 g)
I could probably make my own peanut butter at home (I have a Vitamix), but I don’t know where I would buy cheap peanuts.
Either way, I enjoy the taste of the cheap, no-stir peanut butter (I was raised on stuff like this), and I don’t really understand or appreciate whatever health impact it may or may not have to eat the cheap peanut butter vs the more expensive one - whereas I very much do appreciate the economic cost of the higher peanut butter and that immediate effect on my grocery bill.
I guess it’s better than never being able to afford peanut butter? I sort of have a renewed respect for mass produced / factory foods that make food more financially accessible.
I eat pasta that is fortified because the cheap pasta has extra vitamins added, there are some good things about this even if the pasta isn’t as tasty as the more expensive brands.