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Loading...PB&Js for the Planet
- Megan, selected from Planet Green
- April 10, 2010
- 7:02 am
- 171 comments
The humble peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwich could save the world, according to The PB&J Campaign, an online effort that claims eating peanut butter is a good way to help the environment. The next time you chow down on a PB&J instead of a hamburger, says the site, which disavows any connection to the peanut industry, you’ll save as much as 2.5 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions, 280 gallons of water, and 50 square feet of land.
This isn’t a radical concept: In 2006, the United Nations denounced cattle farming as the greatest threat to the climate, forests, and wildlife, accounting for 18 percent of greenhouse gases, which is more than cars, planes, and all other forms of transport put together.
But there are also health reasons to eat peanut butter—that is, if nuts don’t make you go into anaphylactic shock.
Women who ate peanut butter five days a week had a 20 percent lower risk of developing diabetes, compared with those who didn’t nosh on the spread, according to a 2002 report in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Meanwhile, resveratrol, a powerful antioxidant that peanuts and red wine both share, has been associated with lower cardiovascular risk, according to the Journal of Agriculture and Food Chemistry.
One vital question still remains, however: Smooth or chunky?
Read more: Conservation, Diet & Nutrition, Do Good, Eating for Health, Green, beef, carbon footprint, cows, hamburger, jelly, peanut butter, vegetarian
By Jasmin Malik Chua, Planet Green
Megan, selected from Planet Green
Planet Green is the multi-platform media destination devoted to the environment and dedicated to helping people understand how humans impact the planet and how to live a more environmentally sustainable lifestyle. Its two robust websites, PlanetGreen.com and TreeHugger.com, offer original, inspiring, and entertaining content related to how we can evolve to live a better, brighter future. Planet Green is a division of Discovery Communications.
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people are talking
Many thanks
Well, look at that! I would've never guessed to use peanut butter for some of these reasons. Thanks!
I cook with mesquite wood that I get from my property. Wood is the best to me but right now in AZ wi…
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171 comments
+ add your ownI used to think peanut butter wasn't healthy or good for us at all,thanks for the article
Crunchy please!
it is awesome
thanks
thanks
I love pb&j's. Of course, I choose organic brands of both.
I love all nut butters but buy PB the most often due to its price. The crunchy variety is my fav.
Smooth please!
yay
Thanks for the article.
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