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April 18, 2005
Peanut Butter: Not Just For Kids.
Looking for a tasty way to lower your cholesterol and reduce your risk of heart disease?
The answer may be in a food that many children love and enjoy on a regular basis: peanut butter. Research shows that peanut butter, along with peanuts, can help lower blood cholesterol and protect against heart disease, when used in a heart healthy eating plan.
Peanuts appear to have this effect because they contain healthy unsaturated fats. Other nutrients include fiber, vitamin E, folic acid, magnesium, copper and zinc. As with many other studies, the benefits of peanuts were seen with consumption of the food, not supplements.
A lot of people have misconceptions about peanut butter in that it is unhealthy because it has some saturated fat and some sugar in it. When you look at the big picture, the amount of healthy fats outweighs the small amount of saturated fat in a serving of peanut butter. I would also recommend the natural peanut butter which contains just peanuts and oil. Just remember, fat has the most calories per serving so even though the fat is a healthy fat, you still need to watch your serving sizes.
Posted by Lisa at April 18, 2005 08:24 AM
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