Monday, November 8th, 2010 at
1:16 pm
I just read this amazingly eye-opening book called The China Study.
It talks about why there were so many Filipino kids were having liver cancers. Apparently, Filipinos from poor families and their kids were encouraged to eat peanuts and peanut butter (PB) because it was a cheap protein. The problem was that peanuts often were contaminated with a fungus-produced toxin called aflatoxin. In a factory, they found that the workers will scoop up the whole nuts that were good and use to sell as premium nuts. The bad nuts that had aflatoxin were put aside to make PB. So when small children lots of PB, many of them contracted cancer.
That’s not all.
Apparently, kids that ate more meat AND aflatoxin had a higher chance of getting liver cancer than those who ate less meat. So what happened then was that the rich kids had a higher chance of getting cancer than the poor ones.
Scary stats huh?
Moral of the story? I don’t know, make your own peanut butter?
It’s actually very simple to make and here’s the recipe for it.
Homemade Peanut Butter
Ingredients:
2 cups shelled peanuts
2 Tbsp. vegetable oil that has no heavy scent
1 Tbsp. honey or sugar to taste
Method:
Roast the peanuts in a frying pan with low heat until it smells fragrant. Cool it.
Place the peanuts and honey in a food processor, and process for 1 minute. Use a spatula to loosen mixture from the sides of the bowl if it’s sticking. Then continue to process while slowly drizzling oil into the mixture for another 2-3 minutes, or until the mixture is smooth, thick and shiny. (Nuts will go from a rough chop, to finely ground, to a thick paste, and then finally a shiny, smooth peanut butter.) Remove and store in an airtight container, and refrigerate. If mixture is too thick and cool when you’re ready to use it, simply place the container in a warm water bath, or pop your needed amount in the microwave microwave to warm and soften it up.
For those who are looking for a healthier alternative or is allergic to peanuts like my son, try making homemade raw almond butter. The recipe’s below.
Homemade raw almond butter
Ingredients:
2 cups of raw almonds soaked in water overnight
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
2 tbsp honey
Method:
Strain the water from the almonds and place into the food processor. Blend on high until it reaches the consistency that you lie. From time to time, stop the food processor and push the almonds down from the sides of the bowl to make sure all of it gets ground up.
Add the cinnamon, vanilla and honey at any time. Remove and store in an airtight container, and refrigerate. It won’t last as long as the roasted PB. Some say it can keep for 4 months, but why keep food for that long? I’d rather consume everything up within 4 weeks or less. Otherwise, you can just freeze up extra almond butter if you can’t finish it within a certain period.
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