Is Peanut Butter Healthy?

Is peanut butter healthy? Let's start this article off the right way by first saying that anything in moderation has some healthy value. (Well, maybe not candy corn). Anyway, peanut butter is not a finite recipe. Some peanut butters have a lot of sugar and others have high fructose corn syrup. Some even have butter in them. So asking is peanut butter healthy is probably the wrong question.

Are peanuts healthy? That's the question you want to know because you can take a handful of peanuts, put them in a food processor and in 15 seconds have a fantastic peanut butter. (That's the recipe for peanut butter, by the way). But in the hands of the big food companies, that's not shelf-worthy until it's got sugar, preservatives, HFCS and more chemicals added.

The peanuts you put in the food processor have more antioxidants than some fruits. The fats are healthy. 30 peanuts have a good number of calories for the power they give you - but don't eat more than that in one sitting. Protein, Carbohydrates and Good fats. Peanuts are the perfect snack food.

One of the great antioxidants in peanuts is resveratrol. Perhaps you've heard it associated with the health benefits of red wine. It's the same stuff that's in red wine. Resveratrol is an antibiotic of sorts that is produced by plants to fight infection, fungus and disease. In humans it triggers the SIrt1 gene which science is proving can extend life.

But a more potent reason is that resveratrol stops the flu cells from duplicating. Even if you start ingesting resveratrol 3 hours after you catch a flu bug, it will help stop it in its tracks. So make sure that you're not only eating healthy peanut butter, and I mean the natural kind that doesn't have high fructose corn syrup, but slap some grape jelly on it and double your antioxidant flu fighting power.
Since peanuts are high in calories no matter how good the ingredients are, supplement your diet with the antioxidants that are in peanuts. Get yourself a "peanut" supplement, one that has resveratrol, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants.

And to answer your question, yes, peanut butter is healthy until someone adds the bad stuff to it.

Dan_R_Morris