Peanut Butter Past its Prime- Rancid and Radical

Have you ever noticed that peanut butter is does not have the same fresh, toasty flavor only a few short weeks after the jar is opened? After a couple of months, if you can refrain from indulging by the spoonful, the spread is hardly worth eating! My friend, your peanut butter was a victim of free radical damage.

As you may already be aware, free radical damage by reactive oxygen species is part of the disease process for certain forms of cancer and heart disease. Reactive oxygen species (free radicals) are unstable because they are missing some of their chemical parts. To become stable, free radicals must steal these parts from other molecules. Free radicals, in their selfish pursuit of completing themselves, can cause damage to the chemical structure of DNA, cell membrannes, and artery walls. The instability of the free radical multiplies in a chain reaction, causing more extensive damage. Once the free radical chain reaction has commenced, antioxidant compounds engage in a chemical reaction with the free radicals to stop them from damaging your body and further. Examples of free radical compounds include: vitamin C, beta-carotene, lutein, lycopene, and vitamin E.

Easy Peanut

Though your diet must contain enough antioxidants for good health, taking large quntites of antioxidant compounds will have a pro-oxidant effects and can cause further free radical damage when taken in excess. Antioxidants are highly reactive compounds that like to freely give away their parts. If all the free radicals are all neutralized and high levels of antioxidants remain in the body, the antioxidants give their extra parts to compounds that do not need them and this process also creates instability.

In a process that is very similar to the way free radicals can cause damage to our cell membranes and artery walls, our peanut butter and other nuts are also easy prey. Oxidative damage happens when the reactive oxygen species comes into contact with a polyunsaturated fat and peanut butter is absolutely loaded with this kind of fat! Though most oil containing foods come packaged with natural antioxidants, as in the case of nuts and vitamin E, there is a limit to the amount of free radicals that a particular food can neutralize. When you break the seal on a container of peanut butter, or other container of high-fat nuts, atmospheric oxygen pours in. In time, the fats in the peanut butter react with the oxygen in the air and become rancid! Does eating rancid, oxidatively damaged peanut butter sound like a good idea to you? If not, toss the nuts or nut butters when they turn foul-tasting and rancid!

The shelf life of peanut butter can be enhanced slightly by refrigerating it. Another option is to make peanut butter cookies once a week, minimum. Alternatively, you can purchase smaller containers of nuts or nuts butters. Though this solution does not seem economical, you may be sparing yourself long-term health care costs by not introducing free radicals into your body-- your palette will also thank you.

Peanut Butter Past its Prime- Rancid and Radical

Jean Jitomir is a registered dietitian and exercise nutrition PhD student. She has experience as a private nutrition counselor and cooking school instructor. Learn more about her at:

[http://www.jeanjitomir.com]