Great peanut butter cookies and an ethical dilemma
Ah, the synchronicity of Chowhound threads! An earlier post about peanut butter cookies got me in the mood to make some to take to my mother-in-law's nursing home. I use a recipe from Gourmet called Mom-mom Fritch's Peanut Butter Cookies. It's a cup of PB, a cup of flour, 1 egg and a teaspoon of baking soda. They're really delicious but of course I got to thinking about how they might be even better.
When I was a kid my mother would make toast with peanut butter, a sprinkling of sugar and a drizzle of coffee on it and we loved it, so I added a teaspoon of coffee liqueur to the recipe and it really works well by rounding out the flavors.
Now we get to the ethical dilemma: the only peanut butter I had in the house is one of America's finest commercially-prepared peanut butters and it's chock-full of partially-hydrogenated vegetable oil. And with the earlier thread about eating hydrogenated fat in mind, am I irresponsible if I pass them along to others? Should I put a sign on them to the effect that one should eat them at one's own risk? Should I have the consumers sign waivers of liability? Should I give them to the opossum that roots through my compost bin every night? Or should I simply eat them all myself and suffer the consequences?
jillp
Aug 17, 2006 01:49AM
If history repeats itself like it normally does then in 10 years there will be a study by some medical school indicating that partially-hydrogenated veggie oil cures something or helps in some function.
It is wonderful that you are taking these tasty morsels to your MIL's New surroundings. If you are concerned, giggle when someone takes one and warn them that they are relly good and fattening.
I do not believe in the theory of "No good dead goes unpunished." Make them, keep a few at home and bring to your MIL's home and spread the joy.
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Agree! Coffee was bad, now it is good... Bake them, eat them, and enjoy!
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Are there still people eating only one egg a week?
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the difference is that coffee and eggs have been around a long time.
hydrogenated oils are a different beast, and the only good is for the manufacturers to sell stuff cheap and to have the right consistency if left on a shelf for 10 years.
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If you're using Jif, it's not exactly chock full of hydrogenated oil, more like teeny tiny bit. Here's the JIF website FAQ from http://www.jif.com/sitewide/faq.asp
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Should peanut butter be avoided because it is high in trans fats?
No. Based on the newly proposed FDA regulations about trans fat labeling, peanut butter would declare ZERO (0) trans fat. Independent analyses of peanut butters by The Peanut Institute have shown extremely low levels of trans fat. Some peanut butter contains a very small amount of partially hydrogenated vegetable oil to help prevent oil separation, which is preferable to most consumers.
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Of course that's coming from Jif's mouth but the partially hydrogenated oil makes up less than 2% of the product ingredients so that's why the trans fat level is less than 1 gram.
I don't work for Jif, and I do try to avoid trans fats (hence I look these things up).
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Well, since peanut butter cookies made from natural peanut butter suck (mind you, I use natural peanut butter for everything *except* making cookies), I don't know what you think people who ingest peanut butter cookies must be assuming otherwise. If I see a peanut butter cookie, I assume it's using regular commercial peanut butter. In fact, if someone alerted me that it used natural PB, I wouldn't touch them unless I could taste and judge for free.
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however, you can buy whole food brand 365 kids peanut butter and it has no hydro oils yet isnt natural peanut butter. tastes like commercial peanut butter but without the whole oil yuck factor. thats what i use for my cookies.
anyone know if the trader joes regular pb doesnt have hydrogenated oils?
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It's definitely unethical if you wouldn't eat the cookies yourself.
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Well, gulp, that does bring it down to a fine point, doesn't it.
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I think most people who avoid industrial trans fats presume all baked goods guilty until proven otherwise.
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Even homemade stuff? Because I generally assume anyone who bothers to bake these days is using butter. Unless their stuff tastes bad...
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Wow -- when I read your post, I thought there was going to be a different ethical dilemma at the end ...
I thought you were going to say because there was liquer in the cookies, were you obligated to say so because there might be a recovering alcoholic who does not partake of anything with alcohol in it.
I don't know if a cookie with liquer in it can impact someone working a program, but I do know you can catch a little buzz off of rum cake if you eat enough. At least we thought you could when we were kids. In any case, I have friends in the program who prefer not to eat baked goods with alcohol or even sausages boiled in beer. I'm not sure if it matters if the alcohol might have cooked off or not.
Anyway, that would be a different ethical dilemma.
FWIW - If you make pot brownies, don't mention it at the nursing home. Just let them have a few and enjoy the afternoon ...
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I just scrolled through what I'd written and caught a serious error: there is no flour in these cookies - 1 cup of SUGAR is what you want.
And I ate my way through the first tiny batch myself and decided to make more to take in tomorrow. I'll just put a card on top of the plate with the recipe and they can decide on their own whether to eat 'em or not.
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I wondered when I saw your recipe. I was sure those were flourless cookies and for the recipe to work you have to use commercial type peanut butter.
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I thought the screw-up was particularly amusing since I had just posted about attention to detail when cooking. Really, I have to stop posting after that second glass of wine.
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I think you will be fine in your offering of cookies. I took a nutrition class a few years ago that covered nutrition and the elderly. Peanut butter, even in the hydrogenated form, is an excellent source of protien and calories. IMHO, the small amount of trans fats are outweighed by the overal nutritional benefit of pb. I think sugar is more of an issue being that you are using pb that already has sugar in it along with additional sugar for the recipe. But I don't think it is a big deal either since most cookies have sugar.
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No one thinks cookies are healthy in the first place, so this doesn't seem like much of a dilemma to me. It's not like you're sneaking lard and cigarettes into their salad.
It is sad that people are so afraid of their food these days. I hope everyone has gotten over it by the time I'm old enough to be in a nursing home because I am darn well going to expect people to bring me a LOT of cookies and I'm not taking any excuses like "Oh, I only had the commercial kind of peanut butter"!!!
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From what I've read, the amount of hydrogenated oil that's added to commercial PB is not enough to worry about, and the healthful qualities still predominate.
Also, although I keep natural peanut butter for general eating purposes, I use commercial PB for cookies. The natural kind produces a thinner, more crunchy cookie, and I like them soft in the middle, with more body.
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