When the foodie world went naturally nuts…

Once upon a time, peanut butter accompanied jelly in sandwiches, and rare and natural forms only found their use in the diets of the serious health enthusiasts. Fast forward to 2017, and nut butters are a staple in the western world’s food cupboard.

Their variety has grown from the traditional grounded roasted peanut to a whole conglomerate of high protein smooth and crunchy, salty or sweet spreads making their way into anything and everything edible. Toast, cake, sauce, sandwiches, chocolate, smoothies, cereal, seitan, salads, soups, ice cream and milk — you name it.

Nut butters have been there, done that and made it into millions of Instagram post.

The wrong kind of nuttiness to spread

Whilst there are zero rules to cooking and consuming nut butters, there is one element that needs to be considered — natural nuttiness vs. additive nut butters. The peanut butter that has long lived on supermarket shelves tends to feature lots of added ingredients that aren’t necessary unless you are in need of a sugar/additive influx. For example, don’t go dolloping American’s beloved Reese’s peanut butter in your health smoothie every morning because that specific blend has added monoglyceries (glycerol molecule) and one fatty acid used as an emulsifier to prevent ingredients from separating), molasses (a sweetener obtained from the process of converting sugarcane or sugar beets into sugar that is strongly flavoured and dark in colour), vegetable oil and sugar.

The right kind of nuttiness to consume

Differentially, natural nut butter blends tend to feature three ingredients that usually go along the lines of the nut, coconut oil and salt.

And when it comes to opting for the best nut butter blend you have to treat it the way you do many things in life — less is more. Mainly, because if you’re looking to consume nut butters for their nutritional worth as well as their delicious flavours, opting for an ingredient list with fewer ingredients benefits your body more.