Peanut Butter

[rosyred45]

This is more of a general question, but hopefully I'll be to the point.
Has anyone had adverse reactions to any type of peanut butter? A little girl I used to work with had an allergy to peanut butter, behavioral not more severe.
It just seems that whatever type of peanut butter we have gotten, Mikey is off the wall. BUT when he eats just plain peanuts, he's fine.

I have tried to make my own, but it didn't taste very good, so if anyone has any ideas for that, I'm all ears.
Thanks alot
Kaiti

[catatonic]

Kaiti,
Often peanut butter is loaded up with anti-rancidity agents like BHT. These anti-rancidity agents are toxic neurologically. They do NOT have to be listed on the ingredient panel because they are considered "incidental additives".

We're very careful to buy only the peanut butter approved by the Feingold Association because then we know it has none of these additives. (I've also watched my son become a monster from a simple banana-and-peanut-butter snack.)

Both Jif (crunchy and smooth styles) and Peter Pan (crunchy and smooth styles) are FG approved and neither one contains corn syrup (another EVIL substance, one you might want to check the ingredients for). Try one of those and see if your son still gets off the wall.

As for making peanut butter...I didn't have much success with that either. It was kind of dry and the oil would float to the top after a while. It tasted okay, though (once I added a ton of salt and a bit of sugar).

[rosyred45]

Thank you. I remember reading before that all of the "superficial"ingredients aren't always on the label.

We did get one brand, and I can't remember the name for the life of me, but I knew that when I made the peanut butter, I did it correctly because it looked just like this stuff Tasted about the same too.

We finally got a credit card, so I'm going to talk to my husband about FINALLY signing up offically with Feingold. I've been singing the praises of them for the last year and a half, so I guess it's time to put my money where my mouth is ;D

Thanks again
Kaiti

[Linda]

Thanks for the tip catatonic..that is the brand I usually buy...I love peanut butter!!! ;D

[ohmama]

What about Adams 100% natural peanut butter? Listed ingredients are peanuts, 1% or less sault, no added stabilizers or preservatives, made without hydrogenated oils.

[Kimmers]

You know, my son eats peanut butter and jelly sandwiches almost every single day for after school snack, (his favorite!) and some days he is the same way-off the wall and very very defiant. Connection or coincidence? We use Skippy brand so I am definitely switching to JIF brand now! Hope we see some changes...Thanks for bringing this up, maybe yet another reason for mystery reactions?

Kimmers

[rosyred45]

I had mistakenly bought the BJ's brand.....BIG NONO

I wasn't paying attention and WHAM!!!!!!! not good, on my part for not paying attention.

And I have skippy right now. Ingredients: roasted peanuts, sugar, partially hydrogenated vegtable oils (rapeseed, cottonseed, and soybean) to prevent separation, salt

I'm guessing the oils were produced with fertilizers that weren't organic? or is that an assumption?

Thanks all
Kaiti

[lisle]

What about the natural peanut butters that just list peanuts and salt?

Another thing: peanuts have pretty high copper content. You eat more in peanut butter because it's all ground up. Do you think this could be the prob?
lisle

[catatonic]

Natural peanut butters are not necessarily safe.
100% natural peanut butters are not necessarily safe.
Organic peanut butters are not necessarily safe.
Peanut butters that list only peanuts and salt are not necessarily safe.

Anti-rancidity agents like BHT may be sprayed directly onto the peanuts to prevent problems like aflatoxin growth. (True, you don't want to consume aflatoxin -- a potentially carcinogenic mold on peanuts that have been exposed to excessive moisture. Avoid moldy peanuts.)

BHT and BHA (BHA is also common here, but banned in England due to its neurotoxicity) can be sprayed on organic peanuts or pesticide-thingytail peanuts. BHT and BHA can be sprayed on peanuts destined for all-natural peanut butter or the anything-but-natural kind. And it will NOT be listed in the ingredients no matter which kind of peanut butter it is.

Even making your own peanut butter is not guaranteed protection. The peanuts may have been sprayed with anti-rancidity agents at some point in their journey from fields to your table. The packaging they are sold in may be impregnated with BHT (MANY cereals use this technique of incorporating the BHT or BHA directly into the packaging). The health food store bin you scoop the peanuts out of may have been sprayed with BHT or BHA to keep the product fresh.

Sorry, I don't mean to sound like the voice of doom. I get hugely frustrated trying to find food I can be confident is just food. Not food plus chemicals up the wazoo. Since I know that peanut products are a particular risk, they are one of the foods that I'm very careful to buy only off of the Feingold approved list. Most other foods are not quite so problematic.

[dfp]

I don't know if it's on the FG list or not, but I've had good luck with Smuckers Natural Peanut butter. The low-fat version has maltodextrin, so you may want to avoid if you're avoiding corn syrup. But the regular one isn't bad.

BTW, a food-allergy-wise friend of mine told me that peanut butter often has traces of mold in it (yuck!), because of all those peanuts sitting there, so if your child has a mold allergy/sensitivity, that may be related. You can control your individual peanut purchases a little more carefully.

[Madison]

i LOVE Peter Pan! ;D

Cat...I know what your going through. My HUSBAND the WORSE allergys in the WORLD!! It's terrible!! There's TONS of foods he can eat! Just about EVERY fast food chain is a NO NO NO because after eatting there he breaks out in TERRIBLE whelps/bumps all over that itch like crazy! Simple stuff like peanutbutter can set him off. ANY pre-pkg foods like pizza's or anything FAST like that he can't eat and almost all SOUPS in a can. I even think some of the plain can veg bother him. He needs to eat fresh out of the garden with ONLY salt and pepper to keep him OK on the allergys. I don't do a garden and try HARD to find easy food that he can eat IMPOSSIBLE!! Cant even eat at Pizza Hut due to sauce or whatever bothers him TERRIBLE!! Oils and butter/marg. all bother him! NO...products in boxes like "Hamburger helper" type stuff or chili in a can that you would just heat and serve. Well, just wanted to relate about addivites in products....IT'S A BATTLE HERE FOR HIM TO EAT MUCH OF ANYTHING....

take care.....madison

[lisle]

Do you have to subscribe to Feingold to get the lists?
the website seemed to be that way.
lisle

[rosyred45]

Thank you all for everything that you have said. I grew up with a garden and canned everysince I could snap beans and husk corn. I've had to cut back on the grape jelly, so now I just make that for gifts.

Just from a gardening stand point, my dad used to use miracle grow on most stuff until he realized that any chemicals, further down the road, will not permit anything to be grown because of a deplition of minerals and such, so now he's back to the good old S*** pile ;D

No Catatonic, you don't sound like the voice of doom, you are a very educated consumer who is serious about the health and well being of your family. I wish I knew all that you do---well, then again, maybe I'd be starving trying to find something to eat

I try so hard to make sure that my family eats right. By right, I'm talking no artificials and preservatives. I'm tempted to reintroduce some fruits, but I know that conditions as they are now, I wouldn't be able to decifer the exact culprit. I'll be waiting for the summer to do this. That way I KNOW EXACTLY what he eats and doesn't. (he was sharing fruit snacks at lunch in school about a month ago I tore his room apart looking for candy trash thinking he ate something here. Even though we have nothin in the house he can't have for the most part)



Lisle: I understand the peanuts being ground up and getting more copper, but I am not up on alot of mineral facts, could you explain further please? Thanks

Off my soap box, and off to use the soap box ;D
Kaiti
madison, your family can come over for dinner sometime this summer when dad's garden is ready, that way, you don't even have to worry about dishes.
HIS ONLY RULE: you wanna eat it, your gonna pick it. ;D

[catatonic]

Madison, there are two things that are soooooooo common in packaged foods and prepared foods that it's pretty much impossible to find any that don't have either or both. Corn syrup. MSG. Both have LOTS of disguised names you have to get wise to so that they can't hide it from you. But it sounds like your hubby is either allergic to a whole bunch of things, or to something really really really common to pre-made foods.

Try cooking him up something really healthy and fresh and then seasoning it liberally with "Accent". "Accent" is pure MSG and I'm pretty sure he'll welt up and get itchy if he eats that stuff and MSG is the problem.

If that doesn't work, try making him a pecan pie. Pecan pie is practically all corn syrup. (Hey, make ME a pecan pie too while you're at it!!!) Make sure he eats lots of it.

Your husband's allergies at least show immediate physical symptoms. That makes it easier to know what he's allergic to. It also means classic allergy testing at a regular, traditional allergist would probably be successful. His kind of reaction is generally immune-mediated and this is the type traditional allergy testing reveals.

Rosyred, I have a brown thumb. I touch it, it dies. So I raid my mother's green house and my friends' fruit trees. You'll have to tell me the absolute easiest veggies to grow, so maybe I won't kill everything this year. (I even kill rosemary, and that stuff is practically a weed!)

[Madison]

Hey Cat,
THANKS for your suggestions! Yes! Were trying like HECK to figure out what in the world he's allergic too and it seems like EVERYTHING! It's terrible! His mother makes about everything. Things I THINK break him out and maybe you see a connection???

HAM....no matter WHAT brand

Pre-Pkg foods ALL of them

Soups in a can...some of them like chicken noodle or ANY broth in a can

any of those dry pkg foods like Alfredo in a bag or hamburger helpers, etc

pre-made pizza (frozen type)

Pizza Hut

Burger king maybe the onion rings. Seems like he's always WELPED up after eatting there or McDonald's/fast food.

YES...TERRIBLE...after eatting a pecan pie that was READY MADE from the store. WORST he's ever been!! We went to a Thanksgiving dinner and relative store bought a BUNCH of pecan pies and gave them to his mother and he ate it and terrible allergic reaction!

Accent...YES I got some of that and it broke him out

season salt/steak salt....TERRIBLE

If you see a connection there let me know?

Also...Do you know of ANY over the counter medicine that works in the system like Allegra? He's some better when he takes that stuff but HATE paying the doctor bills to keep filling his prescription! Uggggg

Thanks cat......Madison