The idea of low carb peanut butter is not new. As a concept the idea of low carb peanut butter sits squarely under the umbrella of a trend over the last 10 years to introduce healthier foods by negating the carbs that would otherwise be present, or by using fibers that mimic the properties of carbs but don’t have the calories. This has certainly been the trend with several healthy snacks such as protein bars, meal replacements and many others.
The trend toward lower carb healthy snacks has entered the peanut butter category as well. Several brands have attempted to introduce low carb peanut butters with either reduced carbs, or enhanced flavors that taste like sugary treats, without the sugar.
Some brands have even taken the low carb peanut butter craze to an extreme, by offering flavors of peanut butter that are inclusive of things like cinnamon rolls, pecan pie and whatever else the imagination can come up with.
While label claims show lower amounts of carbs in these newer brands, the central issue is really the energy yield that the consumer will ultimately digest. Ultimately it is the total energy in a food, combined with the way that food digests, including how fast both fats and carbs are assimilated that gets the end result everyone is seeking - great peanut butter taste without being fattening.
And that’s the problem. Carbs and fats work together synergistically, either for positive metabolic effects or for negative.
Low amounts of fat with carbs help the body slow the rate of digestion for carbs. Thus the best low carb peanut butter is also one that has lower amounts of fat. The problem becomes when we have high amounts of fat together with carbs. The farther down that road a product goes the less weight friendly your low carb peanut butter.
The newest method now on the market involves using very specific fibers that not only mitigate digestion of carbs, but also enhance the way the body uses insulin to yield a true low carb peanut butter that tastes great and without weight gain. These same fibers help reduce the net yield of fats in the peanut butter to give a low carb peanut butter that makes use of known metabolic effects when carbs and fats are combine.
Professor Nutz is the first low carb peanut butter to make use of this method. The real way to get a true low carb peanut butter is to also mitigate delivery and digestion of fats at the same time. Professor Nutz makes use of special fibers such as cyclodextrin, and other carb mitigating ingredients to allow the synergistic effect of small amounts of fats combined with carbs to slow digestion and insulin area under the curve from eating carbs.
This innovative approach recently was put to the test. In an extreme test of the metabolic properties of the product, a fitness competitor with a propensity for easy weight gain, added a full jar per day of peanut butter on top of her diet. She only subtracted out an equal amount of protein in her regular diet. The additional caories in theory should have been an extra 2,000 calories per day. After 10 days she lost 2 lbs.
Such eye opening results may be an indicator of a future where dieters can enjoy low carb peanut butter snacks without any fear of weight gain. While more data needs to be collected, the results are very promising.
