Have you ever asked yourself what peanuts have in common with peas? Read on and find out more about this versatile ingredient in our guide to peanuts.
Along with peas, beans, lentils and co., peanuts are actually legumes and therefore not nuts at all. However, also called “groundnuts”, their name suggests where they actually grow: below ground. It can take up to 5 months from sowing to harvesting and there are more than a thousand different cultivars of peanuts worldwide, differing in taste, size or shape depending on the type of cultivation. (1) (5)
Although the US are probably one of the best-known peanut growing areas in the world today, the peanuts’ origin is actually in South America. Here, it was roasted and processed into pastes already by the ancient Incas and Aztecs (2) – probably making it the first version of our beloved peanut butter!
Sporty Snack
As a great source of protein, peanuts are a popular snack especially among athletes: 100 g of roasted peanuts contain 28.4 g of protein (3). One serving of peanut butter (approx. 20 g) therefore provides around 4.5 g of protein already (4). The amount of protein in peanuts is therefore higher than in any “other” nuts (5). With approximately 12 mg/100 g, the legume further contains niacin, and a handful of peanuts (approx. 25 g) cover about 14 % of the recommended daily allowance of vitamin E (5).
In addition to its function as food, peanuts are also used for stock feeding in the US: not only the peanut itself but the whole plant is used for this purpose, meaning that not a single part of it has to go to waste – what a sustainable solution!
It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time
Peanuts can be used in many different ways: more than 300 different products made from peanuts can be traced back to the American inventor George Washington Carver, who even processed the legume into products such as flour or soap (1).
Whether you snack them straight from the shell, enjoy them roasted and salted, spread your sandwich with peanut butter or refine your oatmeal with it – the nutty taste matches with sweet and salty dishes alike.
This might also be the reason for why our RAWBITE Peanut bar is so popular: full to the brim of peanuts and a hint of sea salt, it is the perfect snack in between. Convince yourself!
Pure Taste. Pure Joy.
References:
(1) https://www.britannica.com/plant/peanut
(2) https://www.nationalpeanutboard.org/peanut-info/who-invented-peanut-butter.htm
(3) https://frida.fooddata.dk/food/864?lang=da
(4) https://frida.fooddata.dk/food/1162?lang=en
(5) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4711439/
