I was chatting with my friend Laloofah about a month ago and she mentioned a technique she learned at McDougall that involved reducing the fat in natural peanut butter. Needless to say I was all ears when she mentioned this. The technique involved pouring the fat off the top of the jar of nut butter. Then placing the remaining thick nut butter in your food processor and adding water and processing until the nut butter becomes creamy again.
The 28 ounce jar of peanut butter I purchased contained 7 tablespoons of oil floating on the top (yes I measured it, no OCD here). I started by adding 7 tablespoons of water to the food processor. The nut butter was still like sludge and was not as creamy as I wanted it. I continued to add water until I had added about a cup of water total. The nut butter did finally get nice and creamy. The only difference was that the nut butter was lighter color, probably due to the air that was whipped into the nut. Also, the nut butter was now more voluminous and would not fit back in the jar. I had started with 24 servings and ended up with 28 due to adding more water.
What did this do to the nutritional numbers? This is where the magic happened. The nut butter started at 200 calories for 2 tablespoons and ended at 140 for the same 2 tablespoons. Can you believe how much of a difference this made? I was stunned when I ran the numbers.
I immediately had my husband taste the reduced fat nut butter to see what he thought. His reaction, “It tastes like peanut butter should, rich and flavorful but not fatty.” Score! Can you tell I am excited about this technique? This will definitely be happening at my house from now on. Now I just need to add the nutrition stats into my cookbook program.
Thank you Laloofah for sharing this technique on how to reduce the fat in our natural butter. I know there are many people that will be using this now that they know about it. I can safely say this would not have occurred to me without you. Thanks again!
Cool! I love nut butters, just not how fatty they are.
ReplyDeleteHeather,
ReplyDeleteI am very excited about this one! It tastes better to me this way. Eliminating the oily mouth feel made it much more palatable to me.
When we need to open a jar of almond butter I am going to try the same trick. It should work fine. I will let you know how it turns out.
Happy Saturday!
Alicia
Great tip, thank you! I've poured the oil off a jar of almond butter before and hoped it would be the same..it wasn't..just dry and crumbly. So I will definitely be trying this with my next jar:)
ReplyDeleteEmma,
ReplyDeleteAdding the water and processing made a huge difference in terms of texture. Just add as much water as is necessary to get the texture you want. Before adding the water and processing it was definitely dry and crumbly.
Alicia
I also love nut butters and the difference in calories with this method is amazing. If I do this, I can fit some nut butter and apple or celery into my eating plan. I have more than 100 pounds to lose so am always looking for ways to lighten up my food intake! Thanks for sharing this idea!
ReplyDelete~Lolly
Lolly,
ReplyDeleteI am so glad you liked this post. All credit goes to Laloofah for sharing the concept with me. It is genius, I only wish it were mine. ;-)
Good luck with your weight loss. You can do it! :-)
Alicia
this is genius! thanks for the tip. i usually pour the settled oil of my almond butter anyway because i don't think it mixes in very well and the top becomes too slimy. now i'll try adding water so that it becomes creamy again. thanks!
ReplyDeletehave a lovely day!
xox
Mandiee,
ReplyDeleteYou are very welcome. Glad you liked the tip. I thought it was genius too!
hope you are having a great weekend,
Alicia
every time i open a new jar of pb thats what i want to do! but this is such a good idea, i cant believe that it was so "whipped" it couldnt fit back into the jar!! this is so cool great news:)
ReplyDeleteMichelle,
ReplyDeleteYou need to give this a try. I think you will love it.
Alicia
Hey, Ali!
ReplyDeleteGreat job of posting this tip! I'm happy to see it was such a success and that your post has generated so much enthusiasm over it! I appreciate your giving me the credit, but I was only the messenger. :-) To Mary McDougall goes all the glory for this stroke of brilliance. Believe me, it never would have occurred to me either! And since BW loves his peanut butter sandwiches, we were delighted to adopt this method too.
The first time I tried this after returning home from Camp McDougall I was amazed at how much water it took to make the pb creamy (I usually end up adding 1 1/4 - 1 1/2 cups). I too was delighted at how it didn't "dilute" the peanutty flavor, and at how much more spreadable the peanut butter became than the oily version. And though I knew this technique eliminated a lot of fat, those numbers you calculated are pretty astounding! I'm really glad to know that, thank you for sharing that!
We've saved a couple of peanut butter jars for storing the end result (a glass jar with a tight-fitting lid is important) and we store it in the fridge.
Thank you for writing this post, your blog has a lot of readers and it looks like a lot of people will benefit from Mary's great trick! (Maybe I should share your post with her!) :-)
Lalo,
ReplyDeleteThis is such a brilliant technique. Thank you again for sharing it with me.
Great tip on saving peanut butter jars. That just happens to be what I put my extra nut butter in. Great minds.... LOL.
As soon as I try this with almond butter I will let you know how that works.
talk to you soon,
Alicia
This is a good idea...my husband eats tons of the stuff...and although he's not in any way fat, it wouldn't hurt for him to eat less oil.
ReplyDeleteRose,
ReplyDeleteI was very pleased by how well this worked. It will definitely be happening at my house from now on. I think the peanut butter is better this way, less fatty feeling.
Alicia
I made this about 2 weeks ago and put most of it back into the glass jar and into the fridge (the rest in a small plastic container). Today I took it out and there was mold on both... it wasn't as visible in the glass jar, but as I scooped it all out I found some mold on the bottom. If I were to make this again (and I probably won't, as the flavor suffered in comparison to real pb), I'd store it in the freezer.
ReplyDeleteLaura,
ReplyDeleteI had a jar in the frig for two weeks and didn't have any problems with spoiling. I will ask Lalo if she has had any issues since she has been doing this for years. You may want to check the interior temp of your frig.
I am surprised you didn't like the flavor. We thought it was better without the added fat.
Alicia
Laura,
ReplyDeleteI just talked to Laloofah who has been doing this for very regularly for 2 1/2 years. One container got moldy for her but she said that it was her fault as it accidentally sat out, unrefrigerated, for 3 - 4 hours. She is checking with Mary McDougall to see what her experience has been since that is where the idea came from. I will let you know what she says. But your idea of freezing would resolve the problem. I stored mine in the coldest part of my frig, bottom shelf in the back and that may have helped, don't know.
Alicia
Hi, Ali and Laura....
ReplyDeleteI heard back from Mary McDougall, and here's what she said... "I have never had that happen. I would guess that both batches spoiled somehow, so it was good that you threw them out. I always use very clean plastic containers with plastic lids and make sure to keep it refrigerated when not using it."
We must have experienced microbial contamination somehow, either in our food processors or containers, and introducing water, air and the peanut butter (especially the sugars in the peanuts) allowed the mold to grow. Since it's never happened to Mary and it's only happened to me once I don't think it's much of a risk, but I'm going to make doubly sure my food processor and containers are very clean... especially the food processor, which can so easily hide tiny little bits of food in some of the nooks and crannies of the blades and bowl. Maybe sterilizing it first with boiling water would do the trick.
Lalo,
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for following up with Mary on that. I really appreciate it. It is very comforting to know it has never happened to her. Your idea of sterilizing the food processor bowl and blade is a good one. That is something to keep in mind for all food that will be eaten raw.
thanks again for following up on this,
Alicia
You're most welcome, Ali! (I agree it was good to hear that Mary's never experienced an Invasion of the Peanut Butter Snatchers!) :-)
ReplyDeleteI tried this trick last night with a jar of cashew butter and it worked a treat! I love the fact that the resulting whipped butter isn't at all greasy, but still has all the yummy creamy taste.
ReplyDeleteBlog post here: http://allieinlondonland.blogspot.com/2011/08/nutty-nut-butter.html