peanut butter healthy or unhealthy?

...?

1..... - Depends on individual sensitivity and health condition.

Peanuts were listed on Mercola's site as being in the category of the Top 10 myco-toxic foods...

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2003/11/05/toxic-foods.aspx

That said, peanuts also contain magnesium, folate, vitamin E, copper, arginine and fiber, and as CS points out sensitivity is largely individual with them. Moderation is probably the key thing, but I think almonds/almond butter is probably a much better choice.

I bet on healthy... but only the organic one, that means no GMO, no syrups and other craps...
And also have resveratrol...
Great to improve insulin ratios

I agree with CS.

One of the things to consider is the lectins it contains. It can also be a source of fungal toxins...

I know of one person whose hair loss "greatly" increased when eating "large" amounts of peanut butter and ice cream. Once these two were stopped, hair loss slowed to a crawl.

Maybe it was the peanut butter. Or maybe it was the ice cream. Either way, it was at least one of those that greatly increased hair loss.

Interestingly, peanuts are extremely high in oxalates. I can definitely say that the times when my hair loss was the worst was when I ate foods that were high in oxalates.

Lectins in Peanuts Clog Arteries
Ken Hess

Lectins in peanuts clog arteriesNovember 25th, 2009 - A peanut butter and jelly sandwich on whole grain bread looks pretty wholesome and harmless, doesn’t it? Well, looks can be deceiving. This delicious meal is packed with a deadly lectin that clogs your arteries.

The trouble seems to stem from a lectin specific to peanuts called Peanut Agglutinin(PNA). Lectins are sugar-binding proteins found all throughout nature, and are thought to play an important role in plant defense against being eaten. (1) PNA is particularly resistant to breakdown in the gut, and has been shown to penetrate the intestinal walls mostly intact and bind to the smooth muscle cells in the arteries, leading to atherosclerosis (build-up of plaque within the arteries) and fibromuscular lesions. (2) Aside from being a know allergen, PNA has also been shown to stimulate cellular proliferation of colon cancer cells (3).

Even if you don’t have any peanut allergies, eating peanuts may still increase your heart disease and colon cancer risk. Peanuts have side-effects, so you are probably safer choosing almond butter for that next “nut butter” sandwich.

- Ken Hess
CrossFit Trainer & Nutritionist



References -

1. Agrarian Diet and Diseases of Affluence – Do Evolutionary Novel Dietary Lectins Cause Leptin Resistance?
Tommy Jönsson, et al.
BMC Endocrine Disorders 2005, 5:10doi:10.1186/1472-6823-5-10

2. Atherogenic Potential of Peanut Oil-Based Monounsaturated Fatty Acids Diets
Loren Cordain, Ph.D.
Lipids 1998 Vol. 33 no. 2 Page 229

3. Peanut lectin stimulates proliferation of colon cancer cells by interaction with glycosylated CD44v6 isoforms and consequential activation of c-Met and MAPK
Singh R et al.
Glycobiology. 2006 Jul;16(7):594-601.