Peanuts and Healthy Eating

Eating well shouldn't cost the earth or take up too much time. How do you choose foods that taste good, are easy to use and fit in with recommendations for healthier living (less fat, less saturated fat, more fruit, vegetables and fibre) and still have the energy and time to be more physically active?

Would you be surprised to learn that one way is to eat small amounts of peanuts and peanut butter every day in place of some foods high in saturated fats?

On average in every handful of roasted and salted peanuts (a 30g serving) there's:

                                            * Official government figures for average adults

Average servings of peanuts and peanut butter can fit easily into guideline daily amounts for fat and calories for adults. The daily guideline amount of fat for women is 70g and for men 95g. One serving of salted peanuts provides just under 16g fat!

Peanuts aren't a high salt food. A 50g packet of salted peanuts contains less salt than two slices of plain wholemeal bread

Despite the name, there's no butter at all in peanut butter

Peanuts and peanut butter are plant foods and naturally contain no cholesterol

What is a one serving of peanuts, peanut butter and peanut oil? Portion sizes of peanuts, peanut butter and peanut oil are not large because these are very calorie dense foods.

By using recommended portions it is possible to fit these nutritious foods as daily choices into an overall eating pattern that is within guidelines for calorie and fat intakes for average adults.

UK government recommendations for average adults are that 30% of the 2500 calories a day needed by an averagely active man (2000 calories a day for an averagely active woman) should come from fats. That's up to 95 grams of fat (855 calories) for an average man and up to 70g of fat (630 calories) for an average woman.

Here are some easily understandable measures and comparisons · a small handful of roasted peanuts, about 1 oz (32 g), is an average adult serving. It contains about 68 small kernels and has 193 calories (180 for plain peanut kernels). This is less than the same amount of other common nuts - a point that most people haven't considered.
See the table below comparing nuts per 1 oz/32g servings*

   *Ref: Holland B, Unwin ID and Buss DH. Fruit and Nuts: 1st suppl to McCance & Widdowson
   The Composition of Foods (5th ed), London: 1992.

A recommended serving of peanut butter is 2 level tablespoons (32 grams) is about the size of a golf ball and is enough to spread generously on two slices of bread

Two teaspoons (equivalent to 10 ml) is a serving of peanut oil

Good Food Tastes Great

And peanuts and peanut butter have all these nutritious things too....      
       
Protein

Most of us get plenty of protein. The problem is that too much of it comes from foods like processed meat, dairy products and spreads, which means consuming more saturated fat and cholesterol than we should. You don't have to be a vegetarian to see the sense of substituting some high protein plant foods like peanuts, peanut butter, other nuts, grains (bread, pasta, noodles), beans, lentils, other legumes or soy products for some animal protein sources. It's an easy and tasty change to make. And there are big benefits: increasing your fibre intake and getting more unsaturated fats without increasing calories.

Peanuts and peanut butter belong to the same food group as meat and fish because they are excellent vegetable protein sources: more than 25% of every gram is high quality, cholesterol-free protein. That's more than chicken. Eating peanuts and peanut butter with other foods like rice, noodles, pasta, corn or beans makes the quality of your meal even better. Vegetarians in particular can benefit from this.    

Fibre

Peanuts and peanut butter have the same type of soluble and insoluble fibre found in beans, pulses, oats, fruit and vegetables, bread and cereals. In fact, fibre levels in peanuts are higher than common dried fruits such as prunes and raisins and these foods are great to combine with peanuts themselves for high fibre, tasty snacks. At almost 2g per serving, adding peanuts to breakfast cereals and peanut butter to any kind of bread is a tasty way to bump up your fibre towards the 18g we are recommended to consume everyday.

Vitamins and Minerals

Eight vitamins, including antioxidant Vitamin E, B1, B2, B3, B6 and folate Thirteen minerals, including ones that are often hard to get in everyday foods such as magnesium, phosphorus, cooper, zinc and selenium.

Ideas for Healthier Choices with Peanuts and Peanut Butter All During the Day   
        
Breakfasts

A nutritious and satisfying breakfast helps keep you alert and reduces the urge to nibble till lunch. A small handful of peanuts (1 oz) adds more crunch, protein and other nutrients to cold or hot breakfast cereals.

Peanut butter on a split toasted bagel or any hot bread that takes your fancy is great -it's creamy enough on its own without butter and jam. Despite what you might think, there's no butter at all in peanut butter! Add banana or apple slices to increase the nutritional punch and help get your "five a day" servings of fruit and vegetables.

Give your taste buds a wake up call they'll thank you for by whizzing up a peanut fruitshake in the blender the night before with orange juice, a banana or another favourite fruit and two tablespoons of peanut butter and chill it in the fridge.

Add a little honey or low-fat plain yoghurt if you want to. That's something to tempt people who say they don't like breakfast!

Lunches

Midday is a good time to think about higher fibre foods like whole grain breads with tasty fillings. Peanuts and peanut butter contain fibre themselves and are ideal to combine with fruit and vegetables for easy, nutritious lunches without having to cook anything. For later in the afternoon, unlike some starchy and sweet snacks, peanuts are tooth friendly because they don't form acids in the mouth to cause tooth decay.

After School and Teatimes

After school snacks and what to make for teatime can be a problem. Something quick and tasty can also be nutritious with peanuts and peanut butter.

Crack open a natural snack with inshell peanuts

Stir up a hearty hot soup thickened with peanut butter

Some ideas that are fun for kids to make and even better for them to eat include making celery sticks filled with smooth or crunchy peanut butter and dotted with raisins on top. Turn your kids into sandwich gourmets by letting them combine peanut butter, smooth or crunchy, with chopped apple, celery and some raisins or other diced dried fruit to perk up their favourite bread when they home from school.

Peanuts and Peanut Butter Make it Easy in the Evening

If you want to add more texture and nutrient benefit to quick and tasty evening meals try pasta or noodle stir frys using peanut and peanut butter (recipe examples).

A word about salt...

Adults should limit their salt intake to 6g a day. That's not hard with a serving of salted peanuts. Surprising, but true. It's a fact that there is less salt in 50g of salted peanuts than in two slices of wholemeal bread. And if you want to cut your salt further, sodium-reduced and salt-free peanut kernels are available. When cooking with salted peanuts, reduce the amount of salt you might normally add to a stir fry or pasta dish.

Now that you know about peanuts and peanut butter it's time to come back to an old favourite or try them for the first time. If you only eat peanuts on special occasions, now is the time to enjoy their taste and goodness more often. No matter when or how you eat them, prepare to be surprised by the big taste
of American peanuts and peanut butter.

Peanut consumption in the context of athletic performance and overall health and fitness

Athletes Need to Eat Fat!
Feature on Healthgate.com
6 June 2000 ¹

"The high pretzel, low-peanut diets that most of us fat-avoiders pride ourselves on may be leaving us short on muscle-bound fat, forcing the body to depend solely on quickly depleted carbohydrate stores".

Karen Schroeder MS,RD  

"Many athletes walk around feeling hungry all day. But, eat some peanut butter or low-fat yogurt instead of the non-fat variety, and you have a little more flavor and a little more satisfaction after lunch, which keeps you from nibbling all afternoon".

Suzanne Nelson Steen DSc, RD 
Sports Nutritionist, University of Washington 

Eating Peanuts Increase Endurance in Female Footballers

A research study at the Department of Physical Therapy, Exercise and Nutrition Sciences, State University of New York at Buffalo ²

• compared adding 450kcal/d roasted peanuts with same calories from high carbohydrate energy bars to athletes diet
• fat intake was 35% with peanuts and 24% with carbohydrate bars
• tested endurance designed to mimic football play on the field

They concluded, "intense intermittent exercise performance by young female soccer players was enhanced by increasing dietary fat with no changes in body composition or weight.

Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Trial ³

The diet used in the DASH Trial, developed at Harvard University as part of a national campaign to lower blood pressure through dietary means, recommends 4-5 servings per week of nuts, seeds and legumes. The DASH Diet includes a third of a cup of peanuts, or 2 tablespoons of peanut butter, amongst other options.

Nuts - Basics for a healthful diet
Mayo Clinic Health Letter ⁴

Mayo dietitians advise that "eaten in moderation, nuts can be part of a healthful diet. Not only are they flavorful, but ounce for ounce nuts are full of nutrients."

"Peanuts, which are commonly thought of as nuts, are actually legumes. They belong to the same family as peas and beans. Because nuts come from plants, they're naturally cholesterol-free. Although nuts are high in calories for their size, they're also considered to be a "nutrient-dense" food. They contain a lot of nutrients in relation to their calories. Some nuts are good sources of thiamin, niacin, phosphorus, zinc and folate, and some are excellent sources of selenium, copper, magnesium, manganese and vitamin E.

Nuts are also rich in different plant compounds. Flavonoids, for instance, are found in all nuts. These antioxidants help reduce the formation of substances in the body that may contribute to cancer and cardiovascular disease.

Relative to their size, nuts are also among the best plant sources for protein."

It's Not Nuts to Eat Nuts Anymore
Feature on CBS HealthWatch.com
23 March 2000 ⁵

"Not only are nuts being redeemed by evidence that they prevent heart attacks, but because of their high ratio of unsaturated to saturated fat, their high fiber content, and their antioxidant content, they are being recommended to anyone, even people trying to lose weight. " …..

"Peanuts (actually legumes, like a bean, but thought of as nuts) contain resveratrol, the same miracle ingredient found in red wine, which has been associated with lower then expected rates of heart disease in the cheese-eating, but wine-drinking, French. Research suggests that one possible way resveratrol may work is by making platelets in the blood less "sticky" and thus keeping them from clumping up into heart attack and stroke-producing clots.

Nuts may also help diabetics prevent heart disease (which afflicts them twice as often as the population at large). Often diabetics are placed on extremely low-fat diets, which also can lower the levels of the "good" cholesterol. Studies have shown that a more effective method is to replace saturated fats in the diets of diabetics with unsaturated. One answer? You guessed it. Nuts.

American College of Sports Medicine

ACSM advises active people that nuts and peanuts are "a fine part of a diet plan as long as the total caloric intake is controlled". Their reasons include ⁶.

• great taste 
• cholesterol free
• lowers the risk of heart disease
• provides a daily source of antioxidants
• fits into a weight maintenance programme
• nutrient dense in up to nine nutrients
• a unique source of essential minerals · provides a wide variety of protective phytochemicals
• provides naturally monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fatty acids with no trans fatty acids 

References:

1.  www.healthgate.com/healthy/athlete/2000/eatfat
2.  Horvath PJ et al The effects of peanuts or carbohydrate-rich energy bars on performance of female collegiate soccer players, abstract presented at Experimental Biology Conference,  April 1999, Washington DC
3.  Obarzanek E and Moore TJ eds The Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) Trial J Am Diet Assoc 1999 (suppl) 99(8): S1-104
4.  Mayo Clinic Health Letter, November 1998
5.  www.CBShealthwatch.com
6.  ACSM Health and Fitness Journal 1997; 1 (6): 11

Good for your Heart and Waistline

Penny Kris-Etherton, Ph.D., R.D., Distinguished Professor of Nutrition at Pennsylvania State University, found that a weight-loss diet high in monounsaturated fat provided by peanuts and peanut butter lowered cholesterol levels and helped subjects lose weight  ¹. Subjects on both a low-fat diet (less than 20% calories from fat) and a higher fat diet (35% of calories from fat, which was mainly monounsaturated) lost an average of two pounds per week. Both diets lowered total and LDL cholesterol, known risk factors for cardiovascular disease. Dr. Kris-Etherton commented, "Consumers should understand that 'fat-free' does not always translate into weight loss. Healthy diets can include favourite foods, such as peanuts and peanut butter, while promoting weight loss and weight maintenance."

A 'real-life' example of the benefits of adding peanuts and peanut butter to a healthy diet is a study conducted by Frank Sacks, M.D., and Kathy McManus, M.S., R.D., at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston  ². Almost three times as many people were able to stick to a 'Mediterranean Style Diet' that included peanuts and peanut butter during an 18 month, free-living weight-loss study. One hundred and one overweight men and women were assigned to either of two weight loss diets: 1) a low-fat diet and 2) a higher monounsaturated-fat, 'Mediterranean-style' diet. They found that subjects on the 'Mediterranean-style' diet fared better throughout the study period. Participants were able to lose an average of 11 pounds each and maintain their weight loss, while those following the low-fat diet re-gained almost half of the lost weight, resulting in only a six pound weight loss after 18 months. In addition, over 80 percent of the subjects on the low-fat diet dropped out of the study compared to less than half (46%) of the subjects on the higher fat diet.

Rick Mattes, Ph.D., R.D., a satiety expert at Purdue University, Indiana, examined why peanuts and peanut butter may help people stick to weight-loss programmes  ³. Dr. Mattes and collaborator Corinna Lermer found that when 500 calories of peanuts were added to subjects' regular diets, substituted in the diet for other fat, or eaten freely, the results were the same - the men and women automatically compensated for most of the additional calories and spontaneously commented on the high satiety of the peanuts. Those who either added peanuts to their regular diet or substituted peanuts for other fats had the added benefit of significantly lowering their triglyceride levels (TG), a known risk factor for cardiovascular disease (CVD).

In another interesting study, Atif Awad, Ph.D., at the State University of New York in Buffalo, identified an important phytochemical, beta-sitosterol (SIT), in peanuts and peanut products  ⁴. SIT has previously been shown to inhibit cancer growth, especially prostate cancer. He examined the SIT content of peanuts, peanut butter, peanut flour and peanut oil and found that the content varied from 44 mg SIT/100 gm (peanut flour) to 191 mg SIT/100 gm (unrefined peanut oil). Snack peanuts contain 160 mg SIT/100 gm and peanut butter contains approximately 120 mg SIT/100 gm. The amount of protective SIT in unrefined peanut oil is comparable to that of soyabean oil (183 mg SIT/100 gm).

In addition, a study conducted by Brenda Eissenstat, M.S., R.D., also at Pennsylvania State University found that peanut eaters consistently tend to have higher levels of key nutrients and overall healthier diets than their non-peanut eating counterparts and that the body mass index (BMI, a measure health professionals use to evaluate body weight) of peanut eaters was found to be more favourable than that of non-peanut eaters  ⁵.

Lisa Brown, D.Sc., at Harvard School of Public Health examined the eating patterns of subjects in the Cholesterol and Recurrent Events (CARE) trial ⁶. People who ate two or more servings of peanuts or nuts a week decreased their risk of having another heart attack by 25%.

1.  P. Kris-Etherton et al "Weight loss and weight maintenance: effects of  high MUFA versus low fat diets on plasma lipids and lipoproteins", Pennsylvania State University
2.  F. Sacks et al "The LBS OFF trial - a randomized trial of a high unsaturated fat diet versus a low fat diet for weight reduction", Harvard School of Public  Health and Brigham and Women's Hospital
3.  R. Mattes et al "Effects of chronic peanut consumption on body weight and serum lipid levels in humans", Purdue University
4.  A. Awad et al "Anti-cancer properties of peanuts", State University of New York
5.  B. Eissenstat et al "Impact of consuming peanuts and peanut products on energy and nutrient intakes in American adults", Pennsylvania State University    
6.  L. Brown "Nut consumption and risk of coronary heart disease", Harvard  School of Public Health    

Peanuts and The Vegeterian Diet

The vegetarian diet has undergone a rapid rise in popularity over the last decade. The most popular reason for this, given by more than three quarters of vegetarian consumers, is that of health closely followed by taste. Large scale studies in the Mediterranean and in China have shown that there are many protective benefits to be gained from a plant-based diet.

At the Third International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition, held during March 24-26 1997 at Loma Linda University in California, a proposed Vegetarian Diet Pyramid¹   was unveiled. It places five major plant food groups - which should be eaten daily - at the base of the pyramid. These are: Whole Grains; Legumes; Vegetables; Fruits; and Nuts & Seeds.

A wide variety of plant foods should be eaten daily, especially from the five groups at the bottom of the pyramid. Lesser-refined plant foods provide additional micronutrients, fibre and various antioxidants and phytochemicals. Vegetables, fruits, nuts and legumes are often consumed with minimal refinement among vegetarians as should be the case with grains.

The average total fat intake of vegetarians varies widely (15-40% of daily energy). Unrefined plant sources of fat such as nuts, seeds, avocadoes and olives are generously consumed by some vegetarians and not as much by others. These are food sources of unsaturated fats, antioxidants, phytochemicals and dietary fibre. According to surveys, vegetarians consume nuts more frequently than non-vegetarians. In India, with a millennium of vegetarian tradition, peanuts and peanut oils are a prominent part of the diet.

Compared to non-vegetarians, studies show vegetarians have lower mortality rates and a reduced risk of developing coronary heart disease, hypertension, non-insulin dependent diabetes and some cancers.²

Food experts across the world are reaching a consensus on exactly how non-meat ingredients should be incorporated into a vegetarian diet. A wide variety of plant foods should be eaten on a daily basis, particularly legumes, nuts, fruit, vegetables, whole grains and seeds. From these, it is possible to obtain sufficient protein for a healthy diet. Peanuts are in fact from the legume family and, as such, are a particularly efficient source of protein. One ounce of peanuts contains more protein than a large boiled egg. When peanut protein is combined with other sources such as cereals, grains and other legumes, the quality equals that of animal protein - but with no cholesterol. Peanuts are also high in monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats: unlike meat and dairy products, saturated fats, which are responsible for increased blood cholesterol levels, account for less than 20% of the fat in peanuts.

References:

1.  "Food for Thought - Third International Congress on Vegetarian Nutrition" The Peanut Institute, Spring 1997.
2.  The Dietitian's Guide to Vegetarian Diets M Messina and V Messina, Aspen Publishers, Gathersburg, MD 1996.