peanut butter
Peanut butter is a great source of proteins.
According to numerous health and wellness websites (designed with pastel color palettes), peanut butter is a protein powerhouse. You should put peanut butter on celery. You should put peanut butter on whole-wheat gluten-free no-sugar organic kale pita bread. You should put peanut butter on your private parts.
If you’re trying to eat more proteins, you need more peanut butter in your life… or so the story goes.
Unfortunately, eating peanut butter for proteins is like watching porn for the plot.
Being a terrorist and eating peanut butter in public as a form of biowarfare to exterminate allergic folks fragile enough to die on account of existing within five feet of a liquefied legume makes more sense than eating peanut butter for proteins.
If you want to know why and you’re inclined to take advice from someone that didn’t play any organized sports in high school, keep reading…
Proteins are the Ron Burgundy of macronutrients, and there are two reasons why.
First, proteins contain nitrogen. You need nitrogen to build muscle, just like you need flour to bake a cake (that doesn’t have the consistency of a precooked canned meat product). Neither carbs nor fats contain nitrogen. Good luck building a body you’re proud of without proteins.
Second, proteins are partitioned well, which means they’re less likely to be stored as body fat, especially compared to either carbs or (dietary) fats. There are many reasons why proteins probably won’t round your waist. Here’s one of them:
Proteins have a high thermic effect than carbs and fats, which means your body uses a decent amount of energy to digest and absorb them, which leaves fewer calories left over for storage.
Rule of thumb:
- Proteins = 20-30% of calories lost
- Carbs = 5-6% of calories lost
- Fats = 3% of calories lost
In other words, if you eat 100 calories of proteins, you’ll only have 80ish calories left over for storage after digestion and absorption. On the other hand, if you eat 100 calories of fats, you’ll have 97ish calories left over for storage after digestion and absorption.
As mentioned, there are more reasons for proteins’ partitioning prowess, but you get the idea. Proteins are good.
Peanut butter?
Not so good.
Even though peanut butter contains proteins, it also contains fats and carbohydrates.
Here are the nutrition facts (according to Google) for peanut butter:
- Serving size: 2 tbsp
- Fats: 16 grams
- Carbs: 6 grams
- Proteins: 8 grams
You’re eating peanut butter for proteins, yet the overwhelming majority of peanut butter ISN’T proteins. That’s like making sweet potato casserole because you were craving marshmallows. Just eat the marshmallows. Straight from the bag. The jumbo kind. See how many you can fit into your mouth before you almost choke to death, just like you did when you were a kid.
For perspective, compare peanut butter to an actual protein-dense food like chicken breast. Here are the nutrition facts (according to Google) for chicken breast:
- Serving size: 0.5 breast
- Fats: 3 grams
- Carbs: 0 grams
- Proteins: 27 grams
Lots of proteins. Not much of anything else.
The difference between the two pops when you compare them side by side.
To reach 100 grams of proteins via peanut butter, you’d have to eat around 12 servings (two tablespoons is one serving), which would also yield 192 grams of fats and 2256 total calories. In contrast, reaching 100 grams of proteins via chicken breast would yield 11 grams of fats and 400 total calories.
Getting 100 grams of proteins through peanut butter amasses 2256 calories. Getting 100 grams of proteins through chicken breast amasses 400 calories.
Quite the difference.
Peanut butter contains as many proteins as I contain optimism. We’re all going to die.
As you can see in my simple yet powerful 60-day skinny-fat transformation challenge, I prefer to use protein-dense foods to anchor my protein intake. This isn’t to say the proteins in peanut butter don’t count or “work,” just that eating peanut butter to increase your protein intake comes with significant caloric baggage that can’t be ignored.
Know what should be ignored?
Health and wellness websites with pastel color palettes.