They deserve credit for warning everyone about a situation people might not have realized was dangerous. Damn.
Something doesn’t add up to me. That is not a ridiculous amount of peanut butter for one week. We would hear about this more than some random reddit post if it was real.
I had something similar happen to me, but instead of pounds of peanut butter i was substituting lunch for trail mix too often. One day I was passing white flakes that hurt like hell and it would come in waves if I tried eating any sort of nuts after. It’s not peanut allergies, it takes a few days or so to feel these sharp cramps then I will be doubled over the next day. It looks like my bladder had dandruff.
I read it had to do with nut oils, and citrus supposedly counteracts it, so I eat oranges like mad if I ever feel it coming back and so far I haven’t dealt with it again since. I’m really not the type to go over my diet or look into health things like this, but holy hell it hurt and that seems to be the why and also the how to help.
2 lbs of peanut butter is roughly 1.7 to 2 cups of peanut butter. That’s quite a bit for one week.
“I eat relatively healthy”
“Sometimes my only food in the entire day is peanut butter”
I have a niece who is literally obese (>30 BMI) and her mother (also obese, even more so) frequently describes her daughter as a “healthy eater” despite the fact that her diet mainly consists of cake and ice cream, in enormous amounts. She considers it “healthy” because it’s all organic from Whole Foods.
Natural peanut butter is very healthy. But of course it shouldnt be the only thing you eat
A few people are in here saying a pound or two a week is an unreasonable amount of peanut butter.
But when you buy peanut butter it comes in a 1-2 pound jar. If it’s your main source of protein, your favorite comfort food, or you have a poverty pantry, then I could totally see how you might think that one jar a week isn’t too bad.
Two pounds of peanut butter is about 6000 calories, or three days of energy for the average person. It shouldn’t be the main staple in your diet, as OPs doctor will attest, but it doesn’t seem strictly unreasonable.
I wonder how gourmet or homemade “nothing but peanut” butter compares to something like Kraft that’s loaded with sugar. Probably still not super great, but hey, maybe it’s better. Or maybe it’s worse. Eat a variety if you can.
Eating peanuts or peanut butter for protein is weird because it’s wayyyy higher in fat. Don’t eat it for protein, it’s a fat source really.
Y’know, that’s an interesting point.
I blame our nutritional education. I grew up with the Food Pyramid (now debunked), and peanut butter would be considered a “meat alternative” which I think people conflate with being a source of protein.
That’s not how it was taught. Maybe that’s how you learned it. Peanut butter and peanuts were on the bottom row with vegetables, not a meat sub.
https://peanut-institute.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/pyramid-med.jpg
I agree, but at least nuts are high in unsaturated fats, which have some rather solid clinical backing as being healthy. Obviously still energy-dense, and if nuts are used a primary protein source it will likely be difficult to stay within a restricted caloric budget.
E.g. if you want to follow the government recommendation and have 20% of your calories come from protein, peanuts will fall short as only 18% of their calories are sourced from protein (79% from fat). 349 grams of peanuts (about 3/4 of a pound) has 2000 calories and 91 grams of protein - with 175 grams of fat.
I’ve always heard that peanuts were kind of the last option you’d want to pick among nuts, specifically because they’re so high in saturated fats (about 20% of the fat content). They’re not bad per se, but there are much better options.
Still, they’re a great source of added protein and unsaturated fats, but like you said, don’t rely on them as your primary source.
This issue can occur when eating one food excessively for long periods. I distinctly recall this being covered in pre- college health classes.
A common urban legend was the girl who only ate carrots and turned orange.
the girl who only ate carrots and turned orange.
I can confirm this is a real thing. When I was a kid my step-mother went on this fad diet that involved drinking carrot juice every day. It was this whole production where she bought a juicer and I remember multiple large bags of carrots coming in the house. There was always leftover carrot pulp in the trash, etc. Anyways she went wild with it for a time and sure enough her skin started turning slightly orange, mostly along her forearms where the skin was thin.
That’s when the carrot juice stopped.
So yeah she wasn’t an Oompa Loompa but it was definitely a visible change.
A friend of mine spoke to this man on a train ride. He lived in the town we went to college in.
If it’s your main source of protein.
A 200Lb adult needs a minimum of 140g of protein daily to remain healthy.
A single serving of peanut butter has 190 Calories, and only 7g of protein.
If that 200Lb adult was getting just half of their protein from peanut butter, they would be consuming 1,900 calories in the process. Even if they are active enough to justify that caloric intake, they would still be consuming 160g of fat, which is double the daily recommended amount. It’s the nutritional equivalent of drinking a 2/3 cup portion of cooking oil every day.
Tl;Dr: Do not make peanut butter your main source of protein.
A 200Lb adult needs a minimum of 140g of protein daily to remain healthy.
The standard recommendation is about 0.8g per kilogram of body weight. So 200 lbs is 91 kg, which corresponds with 73g.
There’s some more recent advocacy for more protein, especially for active or older people, but that’s talking about more than just the minimum requirements to be healthy, and more towards optimizing for performance.
With their high protein concentration, peanuts are used to help fight malnutrition. Plumpy Nut, MANA Nutrition,[67] and Medika Mamba[68] are high-protein, high-energy, and high-nutrient peanut-based pastes developed to be used as a therapeutic food to aid in famine relief. The World Health Organization, UNICEF, Project Peanut Butter, and Doctors Without Borders have used these products to help save malnourished children in developing countries.
Oh my god
I did not know that could happen.
Time to find some other foods to replace my #1 go-to 😟
Fuck
I can happen if you eat a fucking pound or two a week. Do you eat that much in a week as your comfort food?
Yes I do
I’m boring, I like having meals that I don’t have to think about as options to lean on in the morning. Pb and toast is my default for a low effort, no-brain-power-required breakfast.
During my poverty days I ate that as my main source of calories in the day. At most I’d go through a 1lb jar in about 3 days, so like 2lbs a week back then.
These days I’m eating a plant based diet and have far more variety of foods I put in my face. I still go through a 1lb jar in ~1 week, unless I’m eating oatmeal or something else for breakfast for a stretch.
You know that ‘what’s one food you’d bring to a deserted island to eat forever’ question? My answer was always peanut butter. Have to rethink that now.
I mean a pound, I have sat in front of a jar of nutella and done that. Just wouldn’t do that every week lol
Some years ago I could nearly eat nutella by the spoonful, but my taste buds must have changed because now it tastes too sweet, so I only eat it occasionally.
I genuinely think I’ve been eating about a pound a week for a while. 😐 Not amused.
A standard jar of JIF is only 3/4 Lb. 1-2Lb/week is 2-3 jars a week. There’s no way you didn’t suspect that this was unhealthy…
Kidney stones fucking suck too. Note that there are more than just the calcium oxalate kidney stones, but for those ones in particular, other things high in oxalates that you might be eating that are high in oxalates: spinach, chocolate, tea, nuts, sweet potatoes.
So if you’re trying to eat healthier, don’t fully adjust to eating (breakfast) an oatmeal bake with nuts, peanut butter, and chocolate; (lunch) wraps using a spinach wrap and/or spinach instead of lettuce for the greens in it; and tea instead sodas… Unless you like the idea of Tylenol sized kidney stones.
As someone who has always had a problem with calcium oxalate stones, I did not know peanut butter is so loaded with oxalates, so this is good information to have.
It’ll sound counter intuitive, but one way to avoid problems with oxalates is to consume calcium rich foods with oxalate high foods. For example, a glass of milk (soy milk counts) with a PB&J.
The reason this works is the calcium binds with the oxalate in your stomach and not your liver/kidneys.
For this to work, you have to consume both at the same time.
Something that’s always stuck with me (re:kidney stones) is that consistently sleeping on the same side seems to increase the likelihood of developing them.
In the 93 patients [of 110] who consistently slept to one side, the side in which renal stones were found was identical to the dependent sleep side in 76%. source