Many bariatric physicians are surprised to find how many of their patients eat a lot of peanut butter and say that they do it for “protein.” It is true that peanut butter has protein however that is not the whole story. Tastes fabulous, makes great cookies, but as a protein source? So-so at best. Two tablespoons of peanut butter has 188 calories with 9 grams of protein but 12 grams of fat. Notice that there are more grams of fat than grams of protein!
Another point to make is that the protein is an “incomplete” protein. What does that mean? That means that it does not contain all 20 amino acids which are the building blocks of all of our muscles. Amino acids are the building blocks of protein and there are twenty amino acids our body needs.
Chicken, beef, milk contain all 20 and are considered complete. So for peanut butter make it as a complete protein source, you need to eat it with complementary proteins. That means it is incomplete by itself and you need to add a food source with the “missing” amino acids. This might include extra meat, fish, chicken, dairy, bread, rice or cereal. So if you say you are eating peanut butter for protein, for that to be complete, you need to add extra food with it.
So when all is said and done, you end up consuming almost 300 calories for only 9 g of protein with a bunch of fat to boot. Peanut butter snack crackers have even less protein; the average package of six only has about six grams of protein.
Compare this to cottage cheese, for instance. ½ cup of cottage cheese has 80-110 calories (depending on whether you get 1% or 4%), 14g of protein and 1-4g of fat. So lots more protein, half the calories and almost no fat!! Combine the cottage cheese with a little bit of sugar free jelly and spread it on whole wheat toast and you’ve got a delicious breakfast or snack with a whole lot more bang for your diet buck.