I needed to disable self sign-ups because I’ve been getting too many spam-type accounts. Thanks.

DiscussionLet's talk about it: Diets and foodsTo eat peanuts or not to eat pean …

Please to create posts and topics.

To eat peanuts or not to eat peanuts?

#1 · December 17, 2018, 10:31 am

Hi everyone,

Earlier on in my vitamin A depletion I was having some PB2 which is a defatted peanut powder that you mix with water and use as a peanut butter substitute. I tolerated it fine but decided to remove it from my diet after learning (from Dr. Garrett Smith's site or an interview) that peanuts contain carotenoids. I don't doubt this is true but I can't find nutrition information on peanuts that lists any vitamin A/carotenoids whatsoever. I did a regular Google search and a Google scholar search. I'm not sure but since I'm not a scientist maybe I'm not using the correct search terms?

Last night I ate some PB2 because we had been traveling for a couple days and I needed something quick and easy to eat. It really doesn't seem to bother me whatsoever like most high A/carotene foods.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of a source showing the actual amount of carotenoids in peanuts? It would be great to know since it's a convenient food that I seem to tolerate well.

#2 · December 17, 2018, 11:27 am

Hey Bella,

The lutein-free diet mentions that peanut butter is OK, but might not be well tolerated at first. I ate some over the weekend with a mixed feelings.

I have found this article mentioning that peanut butter and lard enhance conversion of Beta carotene to Retinol: https://www.nutraingredients-asia.com/Article/2017/11/13/That-s-nuts!-Peanut-butter-boosts-vitamin-A-value-of-kale

I'm thinking it might be a positive impact because I think retinol is less harmful than Beta carotene, at least from personal experience.

Anyway, I am going about this by the feeling right now. My staples are all low A, but I eat some higher A foods, albeit smaller portions less frequently. It helps keep orthorexia in check and I can enjoy social events more. Since I don't have major health problems just a bunch of chronic symptoms often attributed to aging, I am choosing to ease slowly into this.

#3 · December 17, 2018, 12:45 pm

Thanks for your reply somuch4food. I think I'll just keep an eye on symptoms for now when I have peanuts. I'm trying to remain mindful of orthorexia as well. When I had undiagnosed celiac I unintentionally became quite orthorexic because so many foods bothered me and then I completely went in the opposite direction and forced myself to eat anything and everything as long as it was gluten free. I'm now attempting an approach of listening to my body on what agrees with me and what doesn't while still getting sufficient calories and nutrition!

After I posted this I noticed some increased stiffness which could be from a hectic couple of days traveling or maybe the lectins in the Pb2? At one point I would have immediately cut out peanuts and later on I would have convinced myself it was psychological but this time I'll just continue to observe how I feel and be open minded about how peanuts effect me. 🙂

#4 · December 18, 2018, 6:00 am

Unfortunately very few foods are in the carotenoids section of the Food Values . . . book. It appears that data is lacking in this area.

I did see that sunflower seeds were shown to contain zero carotenoids.

All I see in Internet searching, is that mature peanuts have a very minuscule amount of beta carotene.

I'll be buying peanuts!

DS/DWL

#5 · December 18, 2018, 7:16 am

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 7:16 am
To be honest Garret Smith is often making an ass of himself. Peanut oil has something like 10 IU of carotene per 100g, so peanut butter probably has half of that, 5 IU of beta carotene per 100 grams of peanut butter. A whole peanut butter jar is like 200-300 grams so even if you ate a whole jar in one sitting you would only get like 15-20 IU of beta carotene. It has lutein too, like almost every single food. It has less lutein than potatoes, which Garret recommends you to eat, in other words it doesn't have much lutein at all. I think he just read a study headline showing that peanuts has carotenoids and he didn't even look into it further. By the way here is a paper about carotenoid content in peanut oil https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02635627

His other accusation against peanuts is not well thought out either. He says peanut oil increases the uptake of beta-carotene of other foods. And it does, but so does every fat. In fact, butter, which he recommends, does increases the uptake even more than peanut oil. If he had actually read the study he talked about (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28917229) he would have seen that the study shows that lard increases the bioavailability of carotene just as much as peanut butter does. And like I said, butter increases it even more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28159287

"Fat addition increased β-carotene liberation from raw and steamed puree, but reduced lutein liberation from steamed leaves and raw puree. Fat types affected β-carotene differently. Butter addition led to a 2.5 fold increased liberation from raw spinach puree, while the effect of olive and peanut oil was significantly lower, but only minor effects were observed for lutein."

Personally I do ok with peanuts, they do not stop me from detoxing. Although for me they are quite hard to digest and I don't do well with unsaturated fat. But I don't get the symptoms that I get from VA consumption when I eat peanuts. Maybe some people do though, I don't mean to demean their experience or say that they are wrong, but Garrets proposed mechanisms for this are wrong, frivolous.

To be honest Garret Smith is often making an ass of himself. Peanut oil has something like 10 IU of carotene per 100g, so peanut butter probably has half of that, 5 IU of beta carotene per 100 grams of peanut butter. A whole peanut butter jar is like 200-300 grams so even if you ate a whole jar in one sitting you would only get like 15-20 IU of beta carotene. It has lutein too, like almost every single food. It has less lutein than potatoes, which Garret recommends you to eat, in other words it doesn't have much lutein at all. I think he just read a study headline showing that peanuts has carotenoids and he didn't even look into it further. By the way here is a paper about carotenoid content in peanut oil https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02635627

His other accusation against peanuts is not well thought out either. He says peanut oil increases the uptake of beta-carotene of other foods. And it does, but so does every fat. In fact, butter, which he recommends, does increases the uptake even more than peanut oil. If he had actually read the study he talked about (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28917229) he would have seen that the study shows that lard increases the bioavailability of carotene just as much as peanut butter does. And like I said, butter increases it even more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28159287

"Fat addition increased β-carotene liberation from raw and steamed puree, but reduced lutein liberation from steamed leaves and raw puree. Fat types affected β-carotene differently. Butter addition led to a 2.5 fold increased liberation from raw spinach puree, while the effect of olive and peanut oil was significantly lower, but only minor effects were observed for lutein."

Personally I do ok with peanuts, they do not stop me from detoxing. Although for me they are quite hard to digest and I don't do well with unsaturated fat. But I don't get the symptoms that I get from VA consumption when I eat peanuts. Maybe some people do though, I don't mean to demean their experience or say that they are wrong, but Garrets proposed mechanisms for this are wrong, frivolous.

#6 · December 18, 2018, 7:19 am

Do peanuts have more mold than other nuts?

#7 · December 18, 2018, 8:00 am

Quote from Bella on December 18, 2018, 8:00 am

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 6:00 am

Unfortunately very few foods are in the carotenoids section of the Food Values . . . book. It appears that data is lacking in this area.

I did see that sunflower seeds were shown to contain zero carotenoids.

All I see in Internet searching, is that mature peanuts have a very minuscule amount of beta carotene.

I'll be buying peanuts!

DS/DWL

Thanks DS/DWL. 🙂

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 7:16 am

To be honest Garret Smith is often making an ass of himself. Peanut oil has something like 10 IU of carotene per 100g, so peanut butter probably has half of that, 5 IU of beta carotene per 100 grams of peanut butter. A whole peanut butter jar is like 200-300 grams so even if you ate a whole jar in one sitting you would only get like 15-20 IU of beta carotene. It has lutein too, like almost every single food. It has less lutein than potatoes, which Garret recommends you to eat, in other words it doesn't have much lutein at all. I think he just read a study headline showing that peanuts has carotenoids and he didn't even look into it further. By the way here is a paper about carotenoid content in peanut oil https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02635627

His other accusation against peanuts is not well thought out either. He says peanut oil increases the uptake of beta-carotene of other foods. And it does, but so does every fat. In fact, butter, which he recommends, does increases the uptake even more than peanut oil. If he had actually read the study he talked about (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28917229) he would have seen that the study shows that lard increases the bioavailability of carotene just as much as peanut butter does. And like I said, butter increases it even more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28159287

"Fat addition increased β-carotene liberation from raw and steamed puree, but reduced lutein liberation from steamed leaves and raw puree. Fat types affected β-carotene differently. Butter addition led to a 2.5 fold increased liberation from raw spinach puree, while the effect of olive and peanut oil was significantly lower, but only minor effects were observed for lutein."

Personally I do ok with peanuts, they do not stop me from detoxing. Although for me they are quite hard to digest and I don't do well with unsaturated fat. But I don't get the symptoms that I get from VA consumption when I eat peanuts. Maybe some people do though, I don't mean to demean their experience or say that they are wrong, but Garrets proposed mechanisms for this are wrong, frivolous.

Thank you for the links and information.

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 6:00 am

Unfortunately very few foods are in the carotenoids section of the Food Values . . . book. It appears that data is lacking in this area.

I did see that sunflower seeds were shown to contain zero carotenoids.

All I see in Internet searching, is that mature peanuts have a very minuscule amount of beta carotene.

I'll be buying peanuts!

DS/DWL

Thanks DS/DWL. 🙂

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 7:16 am

To be honest Garret Smith is often making an ass of himself. Peanut oil has something like 10 IU of carotene per 100g, so peanut butter probably has half of that, 5 IU of beta carotene per 100 grams of peanut butter. A whole peanut butter jar is like 200-300 grams so even if you ate a whole jar in one sitting you would only get like 15-20 IU of beta carotene. It has lutein too, like almost every single food. It has less lutein than potatoes, which Garret recommends you to eat, in other words it doesn't have much lutein at all. I think he just read a study headline showing that peanuts has carotenoids and he didn't even look into it further. By the way here is a paper about carotenoid content in peanut oil https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02635627

His other accusation against peanuts is not well thought out either. He says peanut oil increases the uptake of beta-carotene of other foods. And it does, but so does every fat. In fact, butter, which he recommends, does increases the uptake even more than peanut oil. If he had actually read the study he talked about (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28917229) he would have seen that the study shows that lard increases the bioavailability of carotene just as much as peanut butter does. And like I said, butter increases it even more: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28159287

"Fat addition increased β-carotene liberation from raw and steamed puree, but reduced lutein liberation from steamed leaves and raw puree. Fat types affected β-carotene differently. Butter addition led to a 2.5 fold increased liberation from raw spinach puree, while the effect of olive and peanut oil was significantly lower, but only minor effects were observed for lutein."

Personally I do ok with peanuts, they do not stop me from detoxing. Although for me they are quite hard to digest and I don't do well with unsaturated fat. But I don't get the symptoms that I get from VA consumption when I eat peanuts. Maybe some people do though, I don't mean to demean their experience or say that they are wrong, but Garrets proposed mechanisms for this are wrong, frivolous.

Thank you for the links and information.

#8 · December 18, 2018, 8:06 am

Quote from Guest on December 18, 2018, 7:19 am

Do peanuts have more mold than other nuts?

Yes, apparently aflatoxin is of concern.

No food is perfect of course and peanuts are a common allergen but they seem fine for me. I have real problems with gluten and dairy though so I most definitely understand avoiding things that don't agree with you.

I certainly don't plan on making them a staple but if they are reasonably low in A/carotenoids then I won't sweat it if I have some occasionally.

#9 · December 19, 2018, 5:20 am

Just reading through these posts. I'm uncomfortable with some of the comments about Garrett Smith. Without him I would know nothing about Grant Genereux's work. He is the only person (to my knowledge) trying to work with vitamin A toxicity. Him & Grant are on the same side. He's not going to get everything right but he's doing a good job of trying imo. He's the last person I would be criticising at the moment!

#10 · December 19, 2018, 6:24 am

Garrett Smith is certainly someone to follow, but don't take everything he says as the absolute truth. Nobody on this planet can manage your body better than yourself. Using his own words "we test, we don't guess", test a food if you don't like how it makes you feel, stop it.

You have been living for years with those symptoms a little setback won't do much damage.

Peanuts are the devil in many circles and he might have searched for an excuse to ban them from his program.

To eat peanuts or not to eat peanuts?

Share this:

Like this: