Peanut butter has played an important role in many of our lives. As children we can all remember having that sandwich in our lunches. Well, that is if you were born prior to 1990, before all the food allergies to be specific. Anyway back to the beloved peanut butter, we have even given the lunch staple a nickname. The nickname is one that we all know and love, PB&J. I was not a fan of it growing up, my little one loves the stuff. As a mother, I strive to give my child food she enjoys. In the past I always bought the "good" stuff, reduced fat peanut butter.
After reading the book, Eat This, Not that, I realized the famous name brand peanut butter's all contain a ton of preservatives. The book talked about the importance of finding foods with ingredients that you can pronounce. It also spoke of the need to find foods without tons of ingredients. My daughter and I went up and down the aisle of a local grocery store and struggled to find one jar of peanut butter with less than 10 ingredients and less than $5. After searching for about 10-15 minutes in the same aisle, I decided to give up without buying any peanut butter, understanding the many people who said that health food is too expensive.
I looked one more time and found one brand called, Open Nature. The brand has two ingredients peanuts and salt. I was dumbfounded. I had no idea that peanut butter could actually be created with only two ingredients. I had never even thought of looking at the number of ingredients in a food that is in my daughter's lunch.
The main moral to this story is: "Be aware." There is no perfection in all of this, unless you make your own food. If you don't have the time or skill to do this, then just, "be aware". Think about the kinds of foods that you are putting inside of your body and the kinds of food that you are allowing your loved ones to consume. A healthy lifestyle starts with you and me.
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