Followers of my old blog may remember that my little munchkin has severe food allergies. Milk? Check. Egg? Check. Peanut? Double check. They do make a lot of alternatives for people with allergies or (in the case with milk-free and egg-free) vegans. However, most of these products have fake, gross (in my opinion) ingredients to try to mimic the taste or are just SUPER expensive. Without getting to much into what I do to make sure he is supplementing into his diet the vitamins and minerals normally found in those foods, one of the things I use is a product called SunButter. This is a peanut butter-like product made only of sunflower seeds. The reason I use this over other soy-based alternatives like WowButter is simply because of the amount of phytoestrogen naturally found in soy. There have been some studies done about what that can do to people (especially children). Soybeans also contain phytates which can decrease calcium absorption. These studies have found that it can cause girls to reach puberty early and cause feminization in boys. There are also studies that have linked too much soy consumption to breast cancer. I will say though that there needs to be more research done on soy before any definitive claims are made. I am not providing links to the articles I've read simply because I want people to do their own research on it and I am still forming my own opinion on the matter. Regardless, I don't want my son (or future children) consuming copious amounts of soy on a daily basis until more research has been done.
Ok, I'm off my soapbox. Back to SunButter. It is very close to the taste of peanut butter and natural. However, if you ask my husband what it tastes like, he says it tastes like sunflower seeds. Duh. He's not a big fan of it, but that's just because he is weird. I love him, but he's still weird. If you're reading this, I'm not talking about you honey :) The only downside to SunButter is that it is SO expensive, we're talking AT LEAST $5/jar. When you have a child that consumes it like it is air, that can get pretty expensive. I've always wanted to make my own, because when you look at the label and the ingredients it literally says: "Sunflower Seeds." That's it. No big words you can't pronounce, no preservatives, just "Sunflower Seeds." I can buy a 1 pound bag of raw de-shelled (is that a word?) sunflower for $1.99 at Trader Joe's, so I new making it myself would be more cost efficient by a long shot. I found this Nut Butter Maker online and was like SCORE! so I bought it and was super excited waiting for it to arrive. When it got here, I immediately put it together and filled it up with sunflower seeds and pressed on. Aaaaaaaaaaand the magic DIDN'T happen. I was like,
this is it? Seriously? The small amount that did come out as "butter" was crumbly, coarse, and dry. Then the motor jammed and died. I followed the directions to a T and it died. Come'on now. I was irked, to say the least.
I remembered
this recipe I had seen a long time ago on, where else, Pinterest about making SunButter using a food processor. I went to that recipe and skimmed through the recipe and just jumped right in. Mistake #1. It came out almost as horribly as the Nut Butter maker's. The plus side was that it did all ground up and the motor didn't die, but it was still crumbly and in no way shape or form resembled peanut butter. I looked at the recipe more carefully and there was a part that said, "this is where most people rush and mess up." Yeah, that was me. I did exactly what it said to not do. I get an F in reading comprehension. I ruined a whole pound bag of sunflower seeds. Thankfully, I had
stupidly forgotten I already had a bag and bought another one smartly planned ahead and bought two bags. I tried it again, this time reading the recipe carefully and doing exactly what it said. It came out perfectly! I was so pleased and my little munchkin loves it. I felt like Laura Ingalls Wilder, no joke. I almost gave myself a medal. I have a whole Mason jar filled with SunButter in my fridge because let's be honest, things just look cooler when they are in a Mason jar.
So let's re-cap:
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| Good |
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| Bad |
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Cool
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Bam.
very fun!!!!
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