Anonymous wrote:

Hello, I'm wondering if this forum is still active as there is no recent activity.

Anyway I'm confused about Sanitarium peanut butter which has been  given the ok to eat, however the ingredients list vegetable oil. When I do the calculation sat fat divided by total fat x by 100= 14.33. Is this percentage considered low enough  to make the peanut butter a safe product. I'm still struggling to get my head around which products are ok re the amount of vegetable oil contained. I hope someone can reply. Thanks Margot

Hi Margot- I guess the "market" is saturated. and the peak of new quitters may have been reached. In relation to your question about "vegetable oil" I eat the Crunchy Standard form of this product. It contains 90% peanuts, 6.1% sugars and ??% of vegetable oil plus minor ingredients. "Vegetable oil" usually means canola or palm oil but since the product is only 10% Australian  content, it's probably the latter. Palm oil is largely saturated but it's going to be less than 10% of the total ingredients. A lot (35%) of the fats would be monounsaturated fat from the peanuts. However, all of this is largely irrelevant. When your appetite-control system is working [i.e. fructose intake is minimal] you will not desire to eat more fat than your body requires at that time. So you can forget all the talk of fats; it's not an issue when you have your fructose intake under control.

Anonymous wrote:

Thanks for replying John. So on the question of sugar there is 6.1% sugar. Isn't this too high as I thought 3% was recommended. However I'm guessing that once your sugar is under control you're not eating too much anyway. Still on peanut butter, there are new brands out that  have only peanuts and salt as ingredients. Would these be better than the Sanitarium as I'm not keen on palm oil for ethical reasons. Margot

Have you read any of David's books? While he suggests a general rule of max 2% "sugars" on the Nutrition Information Panel (NIP), and 7% for yoghurt (1st 5% is lactose based), you can use your common sense and think about the max 10 grams of fructose recommended per day. So a bit of PNB on your toast isn't going to come to >10g providing you don't eat a lot of additional fructose containing food during the day. if you pig out at a party say, then restrict fructose intake for a couple of days afterwards. What really matters are two things (1) your weight is under control and (2) you fee full at the end of every meal. Keeping an eye on waist/hip measurement is a good criterion  too. It should be less than 1.0.

The "sugars" in the NIP includes both inherent and added sugars. While the fructose content may vary with the type of food, assuming fructose is 50% of the "sugars" figure is a safe general guide.

Also, if you're getting your fructose from fresh fruit, be aware that eating the fibre with the flesh ameliorates the effects of fructose, so you get a bit of a free ride. And don't be worried about the current craze fort talking about "added sugar". It doesn't matter where the sugar comes from. It's just the total amount that matters.