4mo ago

PSA: Don't just eat peanut butter

150 comments

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.
  
  That is what they're admitting to, I think we can assume it has often been around double that.
  
  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.
  
  Or maybe "healthy eater", not someone who has a healthy diet
- "/u/UserUnwillingToShare"
  shares a story
  
  They were just unwilling to share their peanut butter.
- Natural peanut butter is very healthy. But of course it shouldnt be the only thing you eat
  
  I honestly don’t care what food it is. If all you eat in a day is quinoa, that’s unhealthy. It’s not the food, but eating just one food type in a day is unhealthy.
- Relative to my diet, that is pretty healthy.

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.
  
  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.
- 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.

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
  
  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
  
  I genuinely think I've been eating about a pound a week for a while. 😐 Not amused.
  
  A pound is like a small tub. If it is a staple of your diet, you will easily eat that over a whole week. 7 days.
- 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.
  
  This happened to me, 11mm kidney stone. It's truly sucks.
- Yes this peanut butter news is devastating. Now I want to know how much is too much.

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

They cannot be eating relatively healthily if peanut butter is their only food for the whole day lol
- I’m shamelessly biased on this topic but I would say nothing but pb is healthier than nothing but ramen. At least that’s what I’m interpreting OP’s opinion on the matter of relatively healthy 😐

Seems like you're good if you keep your peanut butter consumption under a fucking pound or two a week!
- I mean damn that’s a lotta water too if you’re gonna eat that much PB

A pound of peanut butter is around 2600 calories. A pound of Nutella is about 2400 calories. Honestly not as bad as I thought initially.
1 to 2 pounds a week is 370 to 740 calories per day. Eating that much peanut butter for a week or so wouldn’t be too hard, but keeping that rate up consistently would be tough.
- That's nuts (sorry). 400 calories of peanut butter is only 2 servings, 4 tbsp. I'm a big PB fan as well, and can easily eat 2-3 servings a day. I wonder if other nut butters have the same risks and would make good alternatives.
  
  nut butters
  That would be a great band name.

The quantity doesn't seem right to me, a normal american peanut butter jar is about 2 pounds. I feel like if the only thing you eat in a day is peanut butter that by itself would be about a half a jar right? Calories would put it at ~1/3 a jar for daily caloric intake but obviously you're going to overshoot if you're eating straight peanut butter. Half a jar in a week just doesn't sound that crazy to me, thats barely over 2 servings/day.
Also peanuts are low in oxalates compared to other nuts. The number I keep finding for a low oxalate diet is 100 mg/day. Apparently 200-300 is a typical amount. The highest number I found is 20mg of oxalate to a tablespoon of PB so 2 pounds a week is only 160mg/day unless I messed up the math.
*I think what happened here is OP is either predisposed to kidney stones and is generalizing the special diet they should be on to everybody else or is just overweight and leaving out that detail since everything I'm reading about NAFLD is that it's caused by obesity not oxalates.
- Or they underestimated how much peanut butter they're eating. But that was my thought too, NAFLD is typically caused by obesity, so maybe my hypothesis holds water.
- Maybe it was shitty peanut butter that has a bunch of additives and uses hydrogenated oils

Apparently this can really happen.
our patient consumed an estimated five times the typical quantity of oxalate daily. She ingested approximately 150 g of almonds daily ... and six tablespoons (1/8 cup) of chia seeds ... which ultimately caused kidney injury.
150 grams is ~130 almonds, and the chia seeds weigh ~90 grams. I'm surprised it took only 240 grams (about half a pound) of nuts/seeds a day to get sick but that's still way more than most people eat and the relationship between dose and kidney disease isn't linear.
Normally, small amounts of free oxalate are absorbed by the stomach, distal small intestines and colon in humans.
- That doesn't seem like a lot. I've certainly gone extended periods eating more than 150g (~5.3 ounces) of nuts per day. I thought nuts were a healthy snack, and often my only breakfast is a bunch of cashews or almonds.
  
  The woman in the article already had
  chronic kidney disease stage 3bA1 of unknown aetiology
  before her nut diet, so maybe she was more vulnerable than a healthy person?
  
  I noticed significant improvement in my bowel health after stopping eating nuts. They were my go to healthy snack but I don't really eat tree nuts at all anymore. You're only supposed to have like 2 or 3 of them at time anyway, and that's pretty much impossible to satisfy a craving. Peanuts however have nothing to do with tree nuts. They are legumes. I still eat peanut butter and eat about a pound a week.
  
  Yeah, knowing the time this takes is important. It clearly doesn’t happen for binge eating

A pound of peanut butter per week sounds insane but apparently it's only like 2 cups and I feel like that's an edible amount. It's a lot but if I really got a hankering for some PB I could do that. But then after a week I would be over it. I feel bad for this person though that apparently they think eating nothing but PB is healthy. A human body needs a variety of different foods and nutrients and evidently eating nothing but peanut butter isn't that.
- A pound of peanut butter in a week is nothing; a pound of peanut butter a week, every week, on the other hand...
- It doesn't sound like they think it's healthy, given that they said they eat it in excess and it's a guilty pleasure.
- Same thing happens to me; I'll get a massive craving for peanut butter and easily consume an entire family-sized jar in a week. And just like you I'll get over it and go months without.
  I wonder what causes this? Not enough protein in my diet?
  
  You probably have plenty of protein in your diet. Requirements aren't that high for it. They're not a complete protein either but easily become one when paired with stuff most of us eat anyway.
  They're pretty decent for b vitamins and things like copper (which is used for iron absorption).
  Long story short you probably just like PB. I mean it's nice stuff but easy to get sick of.
  
  Could just be your body trying to maintain weight and getting a big craving for some thing calorie DENSE
- Was putting less than that per week in my morning weight-gain breakfast shakes. Worked for a couple of months until the kidney stones put an end to that. Could never gain on carbs alone.
  
  Of course not, protein is very literally what gains are made of.
  It occurs to me that you might have just been talking about gaining fat, which is also more complicated nutritionally than you might expect. Especially to do responsibly.

Love that there's a peanut butter subreddit
- Also it having a News tag for some reasons. Big developments going on in the peanut butter fandom.
- There is a WaysToPBandJ sub as well (words might be off, close though).
  I love PB n J's. Huge variety in options.
  Personal fav is homemade sourdough, fresh blueberry jam and almond butter, toasted on on my cast iron. Joy.
  But this is also not "my food for the day" either XD

Natural PB, or Kraft, Skippy, Jif? Cause that sugar shit will kill you.
Also, peanuts are not a nut, they are a legume.
- The only nut I eat is my own
- So the 'pea' should be stressed?
  
  Yes, except the pods grow underground instead of above ground, which is why the shells are so strong.

I remember my grandmother who lived to age 98 told me about an "all-day sucker" - basically fill a spoon in peanut butter, and when it's done, fill it up again. Repeat all day. Can you tell she lived during the depression?
I didn't think much of it as a kid. Thought it was a pretty good idea. Then I learned about food sanitation practices, and reconsidered.
- when it’s done, fill it up again. Repeat all day.
  So every 10 seconds?
  
  In modern fat American terms, sure. But in the Depression? You better make that spoon last at least an hour or two

A pound or two a week sounds kind of moderate? I mean it's a lot, but if you like peanut butter? I don't eat nearly that much of it on average, but when I buy a 1 pound jar I usually finish it off in much less than a week. It's just an occasional thing for me though.
Are those oxalates only if the PB is getting spoiled or anything like that?
- Its the consistency with which they would eat at least a pound of it a week that caused the problem.
  Quite how something thats 50% fat can be sold as a health food is the real puzzle here.

ITT: people underestimating the density of peanut butter

There is nothing unhealthy about peanut butter (when I say that I mean ground peanuts, not the brands with an insane number of additives), but almost anything in extreme quantities can be toxic. Even water.
- The human body is meant for variety. It's wild that as much as we've learned about the absolutely insane importance of the gut microbiome it still comes down to "eat your vegetables".
- Water intoxication sounds really freakin’ weird at first, but makes sense once you learn a bit more about it.
  
  drinking six liters in three hours has caused the death of a human.
  That sounds like a very small amount in three hours.
  I had a situation when I was stuck working in a very hot engine room. I went through a gallon in an hour and got Ill afterwards. I still don't know if it was the heat, water or a combination.
  Either way, I did learn that if I get in a situation where I'm so hot that the sweat is running, the answer is to cool off, not just slam water.

The only reason I knew peanuts could be bad for your kidneys is watching Dr. Glaucomflecken and seeing his sketch of the nephrologist at Halloween. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAghdVqVJUg

Peanut butter and jelly though
- And a baseball bat.
  
  And my axe
  
  There you go.

Thanks George Washington Carver

Only the peanut butter or also the peanuts themselves? Because I eat an absurd amount of them to pass time
- Good peanut butter is just 100% ground up peanuts, soooo....
  
  But the peanut butter most people eat is not 100% ground-up peanuts.
  For example, here's the nutritional info and ingredients for Skippy:

There's always cookie dough as alternative.
- It’s my go-to when I run out of peanut butter.

He didn’t say if he ate it with jam or chocolate sprinkles. So not sure if he’s American or Dutch.
- Nutella(off brand obv, nutella is like €7 a jar where the cheap shit is €3), am Dutch.

But it's so good though.....

Oh wow 😯. I do like peanut butter but I didn't know about the oxalate content. Now I have to research this. I have this new hobby of cyanotype and the newformula by Mike Ware is what I'm using. It contains oxalates. I never touch the stuff as I apply it. But sometimes I stick my fingers into the developing bath without gloves. Hmm. Well now I'm going to wear gloves. But I also want to read the MSDS.
- Kinda curious what the sugar/corn syrup content of the peanut butter was.
- I think you have to eat it!

The word "liver" doesn't appear in the Wikipedia article.
wp:Peanut

As for oxalates:
wp:Oxalate:
Several plant foods such as the root and/or leaves of spinach, rhubarb, and buckwheat are high in oxalic acid and can contribute to the formation of kidney stones in some individuals. Other oxalate-rich plants include fat hen ("lamb's quarters"), sorrel, and several Oxalis species (also sometimes called sorrels). The root and/or leaves of rhubarb and buckwheat are high in oxalic acid.[14] Other edible plants with significant concentrations of oxalate include, in decreasing order, star fruit (carambola), black pepper, parsley, poppy seed, amaranth, chard, beets, cocoa, chocolate, most nuts, most berries, fishtail palms, New Zealand spinach (Tetragonia tetragonioides), and beans.[citation needed] Leaves of the tea plant (Camellia sinensis) contain among the greatest measured concentrations of oxalic acid relative to other plants. However, the drink derived by infusion in hot water typically contains only low to moderate amounts of oxalic acid due to the small mass of leaves used for brewing.[citation needed]
but no mention of peanuts in the main or talk page.

The doctor might be wrong.
- The poster might be lying too.
  
  The poster might both be their own doctor and lying.
- I suspect peanut falls under the "most nuts" part, right after cocoa and chocolate
  
  Peanuts aren't nuts...
  
  yep.

eh, I've only been eating rice and popcorn for the last 2 days...

I used to eat up to a pound a day, and now I'm wondering if I did myself permanent damage. Certainly half a pound a day, minimum, for a year.
- What the fuck
  
  Strength training plus an intensely physical job, 200g of peanut butter was an extra 1200kcal and went down very easily at the end of the day. Sometimes I'd be so tired I'd end up eating the rest of the jar as well. I must have eaten my girlfriend's weight in peanut butter over the course of a year. I'm so tired all the time nowadays I don't really know how it was possible. Some days would need 7000kal to hit maintenance.
- You are good, oxalates eventually gets eliminated over time. And even if it made some damage, liver can heal itself fast. Same for kidney stone, if you have normal nutrition, they dissolve over time.

Damn, not regularly but a few times I have ate that much peanutbutter in less time.

That stuff tastes so vile, I can't even handle one spoon. Two pounds? Jesus.
- Yo check this out. I know it’s a weird concept and all, but different people like different things.
  Theres tons of shit you do that other people from other cultures thinks is absolutely disgusting.
  Who cares?
- Ibwoukd eat the whole jar in one sitting if i had it around.
  
  I would if I didn't get extreme heartburn from it lol
- it's also over the period of a week, so it's less than you would think.
  
  Uh, that's close to 150g a day. That's a massive chunk.

150 comments