Let me tell you how this delicious recipe, that has only 2 ingredients and took only 2 minutes to make, led me to never want to eat it or give it to my children again.

So it was busy Monday in the Salmon house.  Our lovely little 3 year old daughter had been asking for peanut butter for about 2 days and we kept on forgetting to get it (naughty us!!!).

Peanut butter is one of our children’s favourite things to snack. They’ll eat it right off the spoon, dip apple or banana slices into it or occasionally spread it on fresh spelt flat bread.

After her patiently waiting for it for two days and asking for it for the 20th time, I asked hubby to bring some home, but when I called him he’d already gone way past the shop we get the healthier one from and was nearly home, but close to a smaller store.

Our children don’t eat sugar so we can’t just grab any peanut butter off the shelf for them, so there are only a few places to get it from for them. I quickly put my thinking cap on as I didn’t want to further disappoint our little princess, I asked hubby to get some roasted salted peanuts or raw redskin peanuts so I could attempt making some myself.

He could only find roasted salted peanuts, so when he got home I asked him to chuck them in the Vitamix with another choice ingredient, crossed my fingers hoped for the best. Within moments, they’d all broken down and blended into a creamy light brown butter that I could already smell the deliciousness of 🙂 Hubby turned off the Vitamix, I dipped a spoon in and….

Oh

My

Goodness

It was the most delicious Peanut Butter I’d every tasted in my whole life!!!!

Now let me state this for the record:

• I knew roasted salted peanuts aren’t the most healthy food in the entire world
• I knew roasted salted nuts should really only be eaten 1-2 a week at most in small quantities, with ample healthy fats in your diet, which is how much we have it normally
• I knew it was better to eat raw nuts
• I knew it was even better to eat raw nuts that have been soaked
• I knew I could quite easily soak raw nuts overnight, then dehydrate them the next day, then sprinkle them in a little salt to get a much healthy version of shop bought nut butters.

I knew all this but wanted to do the best with what I had at that time.

But what I came to realise as I researched more about peanuts when I wanted to share this recipe with you, is that this supposedly healthier version of regular peanut butter I’d made, and even the healthier peanut butters we normally buy for our children, all share the same potential threat…

Mold

And specifically a carcinogenic mold called Aflatoxin

According to the Food Standards Agency, Mycotoxins are produced by certain moulds growing on food crops. Many are genotoxic carcinogens, which means they can cause cancer by damaging DNA. . Aflatoxin B1 is the most toxic mycotoxin and is found in nuts, nut butters, nut products and other dried tree fruits, especially peanuts and pistachios.

There’s been some correlation between large doses of Aflatoxin and liver cancer in humans in some studies, also in the book “The China Study”, the author used it to induce liver cancer in mice.

While studying nutrition over the past 15yrs I’ve always seen peanuts as a cautionary food, and one to be avoided in many circumstances (while on a candida detox or cleanse or a parasite cleanse), but in my quest to find healthy and varied foods for our children, I overlooked it’s potential dangers as they enjoyed it so much and it was a whole foods that was dairy, gluten and sugar free, which are the main criteria for our children.

But the research seems to be quite heavily stacked against our continued regular consumption of this yummy treat, so the likelihood is I won’t be making it again or buying peanut butter much either, if at all.

Now I am saying that ALL PEANUT PRODUCTS have toxic carcinogenic mould? No

Will we ever eat peanut butter again? Probably once in a while, and to peanut butter’s credit, the process of making peanut butter did seem to reduce the levels of aflatoxin, so a good quality organic butter maybe a little safer than the nuts alone. But it definitely won’t be my first choice of snack for the little ones or myself. I even have 2 recipes in my book Leah’s Raw Food Feast which have a couple spoons of peanut butter as an optional ingredient, but I’ll probably use the alternative or just make them with peanut butter once in a while.

But fear not!!!! All is not lost!!!

If you love the taste of peanut butter as I do, why not try: 

Brazil nut butter

Almond nut butter

Hazelnut butter

or

Pumpkin seed butter

They all have quite similar tastes and consistencies as peanut butter without the same potential threat of mold and carcinogens.

So, there you have it, this simple recipe share has turned into a bit of a science lesson but I hope it’s helped you become a bit more aware about a food you may enjoy, so you can decide if it’s something you still want to include in your diet very regularly

If you want over 100 yummy raw vegan recipes to try, get a copy of Leah’s Raw Food Feast NOW here

Take care and stay healthy

Leah

The Naturally You Coach

About the Author: Leah Salmon, The Naturally You Coach, is a best selling author of 6 books, editor of The Naturally You Magazine, a whole foods and personal development coach, raw food workshop teacher and homeschooling mother of 6. Leah helps people boost their energy, beat their cravings, stabilise their weight, reverse symptoms of disease using personalised dieting planning with whole foods and her signature 7 step Naturally You Coaching program. Join her FREE mailing list at the bottom of this  page to get a Free Top Ten Health Boosting Recipes Book