Good value peanut butter?

~Chameleon~

spaceboy wrote: »

Rapeseed oil is better for you than sunflower oil imo. More mono-unsaturates - sunflower oil is very high in poly-unsaturates.

But palm oil is very high in saturated fat and not the healthy kind. Not to mention the ethical problem of using it.

spaceboy

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

But palm oil is very high in saturated fat and not the healthy kind. Not to mention the ethical problem of using it.

They tend to use only a small amount of palm oil in peanut butter. It's one of the last ingredients listed.

~Chameleon~

spaceboy wrote: »

They tend to use only a small amount of palm oil in peanut butter. It's one of the last ingredients listed.

Maybe so but I try my best to avoid it all costs for both health and ethical reasons. Admittedly it's not always easy as often it's listed as just vegetable oil. Best to avoid all processed foods in that case. Can be harder to completely avoid in household products though

A._Badger

~Chameleon~ wrote: »

Maybe so but I try my best to avoid it all costs for both health and ethical reasons. Admittedly it's not always easy as often it's listed as just vegetable oil. Best to avoid all processed foods in that case. Can be harder to completely avoid in household products though

As always, there is another view altogether

The following is a PDF from the Adam Smith Institute. No, they don't produce palm oil, nor, unlike Greenpeace, the WWF and Friends of the Earth, are they a multi billion dollar international organisation.

http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/resources/Dispelling-the-myths.pdf

Just in the interest of fairness and balance.

Emuchops

If you have a food processor or blender, you can make your own in a jiffy-just blend up a bag of peanuts (I like 'salted', but it's up to you). There isn't usually any need to add extra oil as it's surprising how much is released through grinding. You can add sugar or whatever, to your taste, and it lasts for ages. Tastes quite different to store bought (and nicer I think).
If I buy it I always go for Lidl due to palm oil issues already discussed.

spaceboy

A._Badger wrote: »

As always, there is another view altogether

The following is a PDF from the Adam Smith Institute. No, they don't produce palm oil, nor, unlike Greenpeace, the WWF and Friends of the Earth, are they a multi billion dollar international organisation.

http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/resources/Dispelling-the-myths.pdf

Just in the interest of fairness and balance.

Fair points but it does seem that palm oil is not very healthy. No better than trans fats apparently. I'll be minimising my palm oil intake for this reason from now on.

Stompa

FWIW, I noticed 454g jars of Kernel King Smooth in Poundland today. No idea whether it's the good sort or the bad sort though.

armyknife

As mentioned above, why not try making your own.

I don't think you can really get it wrong, you can tailor it to your own tastes.

And the big plus for me is no more effort spent trying to get the last of it out of an odd shaped glass jar; I usually make three or four 200g bag units at a time and put it in individual soft cheese shallow cartons.

armyknife

A._Badger wrote: »

As always, there is another view altogether

The following is a PDF from the Adam Smith Institute. No, they don't produce palm oil, nor, unlike Greenpeace, the WWF and Friends of the Earth, are they a multi billion dollar international organisation.

http://www.adamsmith.org/sites/default/files/resources/Dispelling-the-myths.pdf

Just in the interest of fairness and balance.

Indeed, but none of those three organisations have multi-billion dollar funding/revenue.

A._Badger

armyknife wrote: »

Indeed, but none of those three organisations have multi-billion dollar funding/revenue.

Are you disputing the pennies or the principle?

The EU alone has bunged £75 million to 'green' lobbying groups in recent years.

http://www.taxpayersalliance.com/home/2012/06/research-british-taxpayers-fund-environmentalist-campaigns-75m-eu-programme.html

The WWF receives a reported $400 million every year and is always on the lookout for more:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/7488629/WWF-hopes-to-find-60-billion-growing-on-trees.html

Far from the 'cuddly hippy doing it for the children' image they like to portray, there are murky forces at work with funding from governments, the very corporations they are supposedly aimed at thwarting (Google the funding given to 'green' groups by the likes of Shell and BP).

The WWF and Greenpeace are both, by any standards, huge corporations with highly paid executives, massive pension funds and all the rest of the corporate baggage. A sensible position is to treat them with exactly the same degree of scepticism that one would a large company.

It's much the same with the food scares we regularly see repeated like holy writ on this forum, flip-flopped every few years as moods change (to mention just a few; eggs, saturated fats, fish oils, vitamin supplements, salt etc etc). It's just not safe to assume that food is or isn't safe simply because a body with a 'green' image says so.

Palm oil is just one example.