Is Adding Peanut Butter to Your Diet a Healthy Choice?

Peanut butter is a popular food paste usually spread on sandwiches or used as a dip. It’s a great source of protein, but many brands add in extra sugars to enhance the peanut butter flavor. This causes some brands of peanut butter to be healthier than others. Incorporating peanut butter into your diet has the ability to impact your overall health. Peanut butter can help with weight loss or gain, and can even help to build muscle strength. Read the below ways peanut butter can help you!

•  To Gain Weight - Gaining weight may not be for everyone, but peanut butter is high in calories due to different ingredients used by brands. Peanut butter also provides nutritional value to your diet and can be a great add-on to any meal as a complement to some dishes.
• To Build Muscle Strength - Peanut butter is high in protein which helps to build and restore muscles. Protein is a key component to building muscle strength and by consuming peanut butter you are able to increase your body’s protein levels.
• To Lose Weight - Losing weight is hard for some people but can be a breeze for others. Everyone is different and everyone loses weight in a different way. However, the concept to follow when trying to drop a few pounds is to ensure you are consuming fewer calories or burning off more calories with exercise than needed for your daily nutritional intake. Therefore, when you focus on changing your diet it’s important to begin by adding healthier food choices. Peanut butter is a healthy option for individuals looking to lose weight if consumed in moderation. Peanut butter contains complex carbohydrates and is high in protein. According to Diane Rodriguez from Everyday Health, “Complex carbohydrates are considered "good" because of the longer series of sugars that make them up and take the body more time to break down. They generally have a lower glycemic load, which means that you will get lower amounts of sugars released at a more consistent rate — instead of peaks and valleys —to keep you going throughout the day.”

_{(1) Sources: (1) http://www.everydayhealth.com/diet-nutrition/101/nutrition-basics/good-carbs-bad-carbs.aspx}