Homemade Peanut Butter Alternative
So grocery prices are going up. And yes, our family spends more trying to eat healthy, natural, organic, etc.Peanut allergy families who crave a "nut butter," pay a premium for substitutes like SunButter ($3.50/lb on their website). But here's a tip from sillygoat76, who shared this with me over the weekend:
My daughter has peanut allergies, so I go to local store and buy roasted sunflower seeds for about $2/lb and grind them up in a food processor with some olive oil to make sunflower butter. Consistency is somewhere between creamy and crunchy peanut butter. The salted/roasted ones taste best and have the best color. The unsalted/unroasted ones came out pallid gray and failed the daughter taste test. :)The cool thing is that you can customize this stuff for flavor. Now I'm not sure about cross-contamination though. I was under the impression that all those "bulk nuts" are often processed in common facilities so that there may be tree nut/peanut traces in sunflower seeds too.
Labels: nut allergies, peanut allergies
posted by Ria at 9:51 PM
7 Comments:
DIY stuff is qualitatively almost always better, but in this case, I think I'd rather buy the commercial preparations of sunflower butter like Sunbutter.
Have you tried the pumpkin seed butter?
I'm all about healthy cost effective options, but I would be very wary of bulk sunflower seeds not having cross contamination issues myself. I do know that Spitz sunflower seeds are made in a tn/pn free facility. But not sure that would be very cost effective. I just stick with Sunbutter myself. :)
What a great tip! Have you tried almonds or cashews (assuming your kid isn't allergic to them)?
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Interestingly enough, my family is not a PB&J one. My daughter never liked it so I have not been plagued with trying to find replacements. I probably miss it the most... but not THAT much.
@berta I would be wary too. Although I do know families, perhaps because of a low level of sensitivity... do not. Of course, you could always grow the sunflowers yourself! :) We DID grow some last summer but we never did anything with the seeds. Should have. There were a TON!
Do your kids eat a peanut butter alternative? Mine won't go near anything that looks or smells like peanut butter and I think that's probably a good thing! She has a strong aversion for it that acts like a built-in defense mechanism. I think the alternatives can confuse them, but it seems that I may be in the minority.
Watch the seeds--like many of you I've seen that most of those carry nut allergy warnings.
Like I said, no... my kids are not big fans. But a lot of others are and this is a helpful alternative to have for little friends that are visiting. I have friends whose kids don't eat anything BUT PB&J sandwiches and she has asked me for alternatives so that our kids can still spend time together. In this case, the cross-contamination is less of an issue FOR ME since my son won't actually be eating it. Others might not be comfortable with that though.
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