Homemade Nut Butters

[Leslie_L]

I found a recipe for Nut Butters in my Vita Mix Recipe Book
It calls for 12 oz of nuts and 1/4 c oil.

I tried almonds with sesame oil today as suggested in a previous Almond Butter thread. It worked great but the sesame oil made the almond butter a bit bitter.

Any suggestions for another type of oil? I thought about coconut oil but I think it will be to hard when refrigerated.

Almond oil came to mind but I could not find it cold pressed. There were only a few cold pressed oil options. I wish I thought to write them down.

I have hemp seed oil but it is also rather strong tasting.

Alissa's book only mentions oilve oil and coconut oil.
Can any of the cold pressed healthy oils be used in raw food preperation? What about canola oil?

Unfortunately I cannot use flax due to a food sensitivity, so flax seed oil is out.

Thanks for your help,

Leslie

[rawstrawberry]

How abou avocado oil or walnut oil? Really any oil that is cold pressed and raw. I don't think canola oil is raw or good for you??

Good luck
Raw Strawberry

[karenisraw]

walnut oil sounds yummy with almond butter. My doctor said canola is made of rapeseed oil which he said "basically rapes your body" He did not go into details on that.


wish you luck!

k :p :p :p

[Sheryl]

Funny thing - rapeseed is the original seed used for oil (very unfortunate name - I pitty the people that tried to market that one)! There was a study done that showed a toxic compound in it (erucic acid), so it was extensively bred to remove that compound, which was then renamed canola.

A few years ago there was a chain letter hoax on the internet that massively warned people away from Canola. I think much of that belief still lives on, and people probably don't realize the source.

Info on the email hoax: http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/hoaxes/hoaxDetails.asp?HName=Canola+Oil+Warning+Hoax&Page=5

Personally, what it comes down to for me is that I've never seen cold pressed, unrefined canola oil. Canola oil is cheap and mass produced, and goes through a multi stage process to filter it down to what's sold in stores. Olive oil features so highly in so many raw food books because cold pressed unrefined olive oil has been one of the only truly unrefined oils widely available. Lately with new processed for coconut oil it's also joined the scene!

Others discussed like walnut oil sound good too - I'd just make sure with any oil that it's both cold pressed and unrefined.

Cheers,
Sheryl

[Angelic Light]

You could try adding almond milk to the almonds to make the almond butter, or even water...

[Jackie1995]

Regarding canola oil: I won't use it.

Primary problem with it is the processing that creates the oil. It's just too processed for anything good to be left in it.

Read the mercola thread:

http://www.mercola.com/2002/aug/14/con_ola1.htm


Here's some additional information (has nothing to do with the hoax link - above - which I read for the first time just a few minutes ago):

http://www.pihealth.com/canola_oil.htm

http://www.jctonic.com/include/healingcrisis/21canola_oil.htm

Well, that's all I have to show on the topic without boring you all silly...

Back to the homemade nut butters:
I too have a vitamix, and yesterday I experimented with a nut butter. Of course, I didn't look in the Vitamix book, that would have been TOO EASY... !

I put 1 cup raw almonds and 1/4 cup raisins into the vitamix, and ground them up. As they "climbed" up the side, I turned the machine off and scraped the mix back to the blades a few times. It's not like store bought, but really tasty and no added oil.

Even my wonderful spouse said "hey, what is this stuff, it's pretty good" which is REALLY saying something.

Only problem: hard not to eat it all in one sitting. *sigh*
I'm trying to keep my total oil intake to less than 30% of caloric intake daily. Eating all of this would have clobbered my numbers for the day.

Have fun!