The call of peanut butter
My love affair with peanut butter has gone back a long time. I can remember eating spoons and spoons of it out of the jar when we went to the beach on vacation as children. I'm sure that didn't do my waistline any good!
Yet, peanuts and peanut butter are still a healthy food, if used in moderation. It's funny, in recent years, it was not part of my life, because neither was moderation. Then, I reintroduced it last year, because it was present in some of the PN smoothie recipes. Naturally I got the kind that is just peanuts and salt and must be stirred. I can't say I like stirring it up, since that tends to get a bit messy, with oil slopping out of the jar, etc..., but once done, it's popped into the fridge and no worries.
Mostly.
Except there are those times when I start to crave it. Seems to happen in front of the TV. Well, that's where I was last night, watching NBC's "Biggest Loser" and icing my feet. I'd eaten at 6:30... and then gone grocery shopping quick to resupply us with veggies and I was just starting to feel a wee bit hungry. I waited 10 minutes. Still hungry. Show didn't end until 10 PM. By that point, I'd be slightly overdue for a meal.
Normally I'd have gone and gotten a spoon of peanut butter and that would lead to another spoon and maybe even a third and fourth or GASP, a fifth and sixth spoon!
Time to try something different. This time, for the first time in my life, I tried having a single tablespoon of PB with celery. I quick cut two stalks into nice 3-4" pieces and spread the PB thinly along each. Funny, it was very good and much more filling! I then decided, since it was approaching time for a meal, to go ahead and have some protein. So I mixed up some Mountain High fat free yogurt with some whey protein and ate that, along with a little more plain celery. Hunger solved, no further TV snacking needed. And instead of getting my next meal a touch late, I had it a tiny bit early.
Best of all... there's still peanut butter left in the jar!
