Peanut Butter

Peanut butter is a food paste made primarily from ground dry roasted peanut (actually a legume and not a nut) and is popular in North America, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia and parts of Asia, particularly the Philippines and Indonesia. It is mainly used as a sandwich sp'''read, sometimes in combination with other spreads such as jam, chocolate (in various forms), vegetables or cheese. The United States is a leading exporter of peanut butter. Nuts are also prepared comparably as nut bu'''tters.

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Both crunchy/chunky and smooth peanut butter are good sources of unsaturated fats. However, crunchy/chunky peanut butter has slightly more unsaturated and less saturated fat than smooth. Smooth peanut butter doesn't have as much fiber in it as crunchy/chunky.

Health benefits
Peanuts, being about half oil, are half fat. Peanut oil is about one-half monounsaturated fats and one-third polyunsaturated fats, with the remaining 15 percent saturated fats. Peanut butter also contains saturated fat and some sodium.[9] Peanut butter provides protein, vitamins B3 and E, magnesium, folate, dietary fiber, resveratrol marginine, and high levels of the antioxidant p-coumaric acid. ===Health concerns=== For people with a peanut allergy, peanut butter can cause severe reactions, including anaphylactic shock, which can lead to death if not treated immediately. This has led to its being banned in some schools.

The peanut plant is susceptible to the mold Aspergillus flavus which produces a carcinogenic substance called aflatoxin. Since it is impossible to completely remove all aflatoxin, contamination of peanuts and peanut butter is monitored in many countries to ensure safe levels of this carcinogen. In 1990, a study showed that average American peanut butter contained an average of 5.7 parts per billion of aflatoxins, well below the U.S. Food and Drug Administration limit of 20 parts per billion.

Hydrogenated peanut butter contains a small amount of hydrogenated vegetable oils, which are high in saturated fats, thought to be a cause of atherosclerosis, coronary heart disease and stroke; these oils are added to prevent the peanut oil from separating from the ground peanuts. Peanuts and natural peanut butter, i.e., ground, dry roasted peanuts without added oils, do not contain hydrogenated oils or trans fats. A U.S. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) survey of commercial peanut butters in the U.S. showed that trans fats were undetectable, i.e., below the detection limit of 0.01% of the sample weight.

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Some commercial peanut butters advertised as "natural" are actually stabilized with palm oil, which provides the same benefit of emulsion. But to call this "natural" is a stretch: as former Skippy plant manager Frank Delfino has observed, "That may be natural someplace, but it's not natural in nature." A 2006 study supported by the National Institutes of Health and the USDA Agricultural Research Service concluded that palm oil is not a safe substitute for hydrogenated oils, because palm oil is highly saturated, causing adverse changes in the blood concentrations of LDL cholesterol and apolipoprotein B just as trans fat does. A 2011 analysis of 23 countries showed that for each kilogram of palm oil added to the diet annually, there was an increase in ischemic heart disease deaths. The increase was much smaller in high-income countries.

When it is stored in unsanitary conditions, peanut butter can harbor Salmonella and cause salmonellosis, as in the Salmonella outbreak in the United States in 2007. In 2009, due to mishandling and possible criminal negligence at Peanut Corporation of Americafactories in Blakely, Georgia and Plainview, Texas, Salmonella was found in 46 states[24] in peanut-butter-based products such as crackers, peanut-butter cookies, and dog treats. It had claimed at least nine human lives as of 17 March 2009 and made at least 691 people sick in the United States.