Eating Peanut Butter Could Prevent Future Breast Disease

Girls who grow up eating PB&Js could be doing their breast health a favor.

Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Harvard Medical School found an association between regularly eating peanut butter and having a lower risk of developing benign breast disease in early adulthood. Benign breast disease is noncancerous, and occurs when there are changes to the breast or an injury or infection leads to lumps in the breast tissue. The research team did not investigate a link between peanut butter and malignant breast lumps or cancer.

Other sources of vegetable fats and proteins -- such as soybeans, beans and lentils -- could also have the same effect, but researchers noted that the data on these particular foods in the study was not as abundant as data on peanut butter.

It's important to note that the study only showed an association between peanut butter consumption and breast disease, and doesn't show that peanut butter can definitively prevent breast disease.

The study, published in the journal Breast Cancer Research and Treatment, included health data on 9,039 U.S. girls ages 9 to 15 who were recruited to the Growing Up Today Study in 1996. They filled out food-frequency questionnaires once a year from their recruitment year until 2001, and then biennially until 2010.

In 2005, researchers also started keeping track of benign breast disease diagnoses among the study participants, who had entered adulthood and were now between ages 18 and 30. Researchers found that 112 of them had developed the condition.

Researchers found that eating peanut butter twice a week during childhood/adolescences was linked with a 39 percent lower risk of developing benign breast disease, and this effect seemed especially strong among girls who had a family history of breast cancer.

Of course, nuts have a wide range of other health benefits, too. To find out more, click here.

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The Main Change In American Eating Since 2000

The American diet, as a whole, changes at a glacial pace. Most individuals eat more or less the same thing, week in, week out, adding new staples and retiring old favorites only on very rare occasions. And zooming out to a scale of hundreds of millions, these individual shifts mostly cancel each other out. (One family might stop buying sour cream because they want to cut back on calories the same day that another family starts buying sour cream after tasting Paula Deen's recipe for spinach-artichoke dip.)

But of course, glaciers move -- their pace may be slow, but it's not stasis. Over the course of thousands of years, the movement of glaciers carved out the Great Lakes. And so it is with changes in the American diet. If you step back and look at progress over many years, you see real change.

That's the basic message of the latest installment of "The Changing American Diet," a series of reports by the Center for Science in the Public Interest which uses data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to grade the healthfulness of U.S. eaters. This latest report card doesn't look so different from the recent ones issued by the CSPI. It's equally dismal, with an (unweighted) GPA of just 2.42.

The report shows that we eat slightly less caloric sweetener, whole milk and beef than we did in 2000 -- but also a fair bit more cheese and way more yogurt. We eat less shortening and a lot more oil. We eat more or less the same amount of calories, fruits, vegetables, fruit and seafood. All in all, then, we're eating about as much, and about as healthily, as we were a decade ago.

If you take a broader view, though, things start to look different. There's been real change in the composition of the American diet since 1970, the data point at which the CSPI graphs start -- and much of it is bad. Using the USDA source data for the CSPI report, we put together this animated GIF illustrating the changes over the past four decades in the number of calories that Americans get from each of the seven major food groups tracked by the USDA:

As you can see, the average American ate almost 500 more calories per day in 2010 than he or she did in 1970 -- a 23 percent increase. Fruit, vegetables, lean dairy and the meat, egg and nut category have all been virtually flat in that time. So almost the entire increase is due to growth in the top three categories on that GIF: basically, sugars, fats and carbs.

Specifically, Bonnie Liebman, the author of the CSPI report, attributed the bulk of that increase to two things: cheese and flour.

"We see this steady rise in cheese since 1970 that shows no signs of slowing down," she told The Huffington Post. "It's no longer just the cheese sandwich -- it's cheese in soup, cheese in salads, cheese on pizza, cheese in pizza crusts..."

"The change that has gotten less attention is the increase in flour and grains," she continued. "Since the 1970s, we have upped our consumption of flour -- and I think many people aren't aware of that. We're not baking at home, but it's the bread, the pasta, the burritos, the paninis, the muffins -- all of those. We're getting more flour in all of those foods. The numbers are shocking."

Liebman admitted that the popularity of the Atkins and South Beach diets, plus lots of good press around whole grains, has curbed the rise of flour consumption in the new millennium, but it's still much higher than it was as recently as 1980. Liebman thinks that's mostly because restaurants have an economic incentive to serve large portions of cheap, carb-heavy foods. They always have, of course, but we dine out far more than we did in 1970 -- which both gives us more chances to eat big plates of pasta and makes us think we should serve ourselves larger portions of pasta at home.

"Most people have no idea how small the recommended levels of grains are," Liebman explained, "because what we see in restaurants is so gigantic."

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Melt's Coconut Butter Leads in Healthy Eating

    BOISE, ID, August 11, 2013 /24-7PressRelease/ -- Living an active and hectic lifestyle sometimes means not always being able to prepare daily meals that are equally healthy and delicious. Try Melt healthy butter in all your favorite recipes as a luscious butter improvement that is truly good for you. Melt coconut butter substitutes beautifully for real cream butter because its primary ingredients (organic virgin coconut oil and organic palm fruit oil) are prized around the world for their stability under heat. So, Melt healthy butter is ideal for baking, cooking and sauteing.

For a healthier snack alternative, try adding a variety of nuts to your daily routine. Nuts contain vitamin E, important linoleic and linolenic fatty acids, fiber, and are a great source of protein and a great way to boost your energy. Nuts also include important minerals like calcium, iron and zinc.

Cygnia Rapp, Melt's Founder & Chief Science Officer suggests spicing up your mixed nuts. "If you want to add a bit of spice to mixed nuts, try our recipe for Curried Mixed Nuts. Simply blend softened Rich & Creamy Melt Organic spread with curry, cayenne pepper and fresh ground black pepper." This snack ranks high in nutrition, taste and "crunch appeal" that will leave your taste buds wanting more.

Rich & Creamy Melt Organic and Honey Melt Organic are sold in 13-ounce packages, with 80 calories and 9g of fat per serving. MSRP is $4.99 for both varieties. For tips and recipes for Melt, visit http://www.meltbutteryspread.com/ or http://allrecipes.com.

About Melt
Say Goodbye to Butter, Say Hello to Melt !TM Melt Organic is a line of luscious, all-natural buttery spreads for butter lovers seeking a healthier alternative. Available in original and honey flavors, Melt is made from the perfect blend of the healthiest fruit- and plant-based organic oils: virgin coconut, flaxseed, hi-oleic sunflower, palm fruit, and canola. Melt spreads sizzle, drizzle, saute, bake, and melt just like butter, but with half the saturated fat and fewer calories. Each variety of Melt is certified organic, kosher and made with non-GMO, eco-social and fair trade ingredients, while also trans-fat free, gluten free, dairy or lactose free, and soy free. Only Melt uses Virgin Coconut Oil that is certified Fair for Life Fair Trade. Both Melt and Honey Melt are the first spreads in North America to be Non-GMO Project Verified. The Melt line is also the first to be sold in innovative square packages for easy storage and sustainability. It's Hip to Be Square! For more information and recipes, visit http://www.meltbutteryspread.com, http://www.facebook.com/meltbutteryspread or http://www.twitter.com/meltspread.

About Prosperity Organic Foods, Inc.
Based in Boise, Idaho, Prosperity Organic Foods, Inc., the parent company of Melt, provides great tasting products of superior quality through the innovative use of healthy fats and oils that allow consumers to eat better, feel better and live better. Rich & Creamy Melt Organic, which launched in 2011, is the company's debut product. Melt and At Last, Good Fat! are registered trademarks of Prosperity Organic Foods, Inc. All rights reserved.

Melt samples and images available upon request

Media Contact:
Lori Meyers - BrandSoul Communications 206.915.7384 lori@brandsoulcommunications.com

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