PEANUT BUTTER GOOD FOR YUR YEART!

Lose Weight on the Peanut Butter Diet

Eat 4 to 6 tablespoons of peanut butter every day. You'll lose weight and you won't be hungry.

Yeah, yeah, peanut butter is loaded with calories. But it's also packed with monounsaturated fats, which Men's Health magazine calls the original death-defying potion. In fact, the magazine goes so far as to say we should all be on the Skippy Diet to reduce the risk of heart disease AND to lose weight.

Researchers at Brigham and Women's Hospital concluded that people who consumed foods that were high in monounsaturated fats, including olive oil, avocados, and peanut butter, were more likely to lose weight and keep it off than people following a more regimented, lower-fat diet. These amazing claims were backed up by researchers at Purdue University. It's really pretty simple: Peanut butter is filling. BUT. Limit your Jif Diet to no more than 6 tablespoons of the gooey stuff a day.





Delicious Recipes for All Meals Using Peanut Butter [Jif]

Peanut Butter Has Diabetes Benefits Too [WebMD]

These 5 Foods Help Control Your Appetite [Netscape]

How Peanut Butter Is Made [PeanutButterLovers]

Fats to Eat and Fats to Avoid [iVillage]

What do you eat on the peanut butter diet? Men's Health offers this menu:

Breakfast: Peanut Butter and Banana Shake (1 cup of fat-free milk, 1 medium banana, and 2 Tbsp. peanut butter liquefied in a blender)

Lunch: Peanut butter and jelly sandwich and an apple

Snack: Peanut butter on a rice cake

Dinner: It's peanut-butter free! But be sensible and enjoy a skinless chicken breast, chopped nuts, an avocado, and a salad for example.

In case you need justification to go on the peanut butter diet, how about justifying a healthy heart? Peanut butter may just lower your risk of heart disease and stroke. Reuters reports that Italian researchers have concluded that women who consume less vitamin E may be at a far greater risk of heart disease and stroke. Vitamin E seems to protect against plaque build-up or arteriosclerosis at the carotid bifurcation, the Y-shaped branch in the arteries of the neck. And peanut butter is packed with vitamin E--along with canned salmon with the bones, canned tuna fish, olive oil, almonds, and sunflower seeds.

Led by Dr. Paolo Rubba from Federico II University in Naples, Italy, the research team examined 310 women aged 30 to 69, measuring their blood levels of vitamins A, C, E, and other antioxidants. They also interviewed each participant about her medical history, drug use, personal habits, and food consumption. Based on this information, the women were divided into three groups based on their vitamin E consumption. (None were taking vitamin supplements.)

Those who ate a diet that was the richest in vitamin E foods also had the lowest build-up of plaque in the carotid bifurcation. Reuters reports that those who consumed the least vitamin E were nearly three times more likely to have arterial plaque regardless of age, smoking habits, blood pressure, body mass index (BMI), and other heart disease risk factors. How vitamin E protects against heart disease and stroke is not yet known. The study findings were published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.