Once upon a time, vegan Mondays were hard work.
Going vegan for one day a week was the first step I took towards a completely plant-based life-style. But it wasn’t easy. I would sit in late afternoon meetings struggling to stay awake, dizzy and nauseous with a gnawing emptiness in my stomach, while my mind did its best to help by hallucinating tiny blocks of cheese.
“Just a taste,” I nervously thought, “that’d be enough to set me right.” As my imagination grew firmer, hints of that stomach-filling cheesy flavour tripped along my tongue; I would close my eyes in moments of blissful reverie, dipping into sleep for just a moment before snapping back to the hungry sadness of the present.
Fortunately, I found my way around those 5pm blues, soon keeping pace with a week-round veganism that I’ve now enjoyed for several years. It’s funny to think back to those experiences of struggling to change. Just like many people around the UK and the world in this same period, I’ve adapted well to vegan living. Yet amidst 2022’s ongoing celebration of plant-based diets, it’s easy to forget how challenging it can be to move from life as a vegetarian to that of a vegan.
My problems were solved without any rocket science: I just had to scratch my head and work out which products would supply my nutritional needs. Those products were relatively simple. Tofu. German black bread. Quinoa. While common “replacement” products like oat milk, sausage rolls, and dark chocolate all played their part in making life good, it was the ostensibly boring staples that kept me smiling through work, play and exercise.
Yet one store-cupboard shake-up stands out head and shoulders above the rest: peanut butter.
Eaten in porridge, on rice cakes, in sandwiches, brownies, smoothies — or even just ladled straight from the 1kg tub into my mouth — peanut butter consistently gives a convenient kick of protein that keeps hunger pangs at bay and energy levels high. It’s no meal, but that cheap and plentiful spread is my ticket to serenity. You remember the relentlessly optimistic Mr Peanut Butter from Bojack Horseman? Yeh, that’s me now.
Conveniently, anyone who wants to increase the calories they get from plants has more choice than ever before for reaching a state of nut butter nirvana.
If you’re on a tight budget, Jack Monroe has called Asda Smartprice’s offering “the best peanut butter on earth” — no small praise for a product that costs just 0.25p a gram.
Those with slightly looser purse strings should ensure their nut butters are palm-oil free (as there is no good reason to include it), sustainably sourced (not all nut butters are equal in this respect), and free from sugar and salt (you can always add these later).
My favourite lines of nut butter come from Meridian, meeting all these requirements as well as being sold in kilogram tubs — about enough for a fornight, in my house. But tastes in this area arehighly subjective, and there’s no harm taking some time to find your preference: Minimalist Baker’s review article give you a useful idea of the criteria involved, as does the ‘World of peanut butter’ blog that made such a splash in the culinary world of 2014.
However, those reviews articles don’t consider the most important variable in nut butters — namely, the nut itself.
Peanuts are a solid workhorse that should never be underestimated. PB is consistently the cheapest nut butter on the market, with a familiar and dependable taste that’s only rarely despised. Your first step beyond that faithful friend might take you to almond butter, whose graceful creaminess makes it closer to a confectionary item than you’d expect from a sugarless spread. For more variety, the satisfyingly neutral tone of cashew butter is well worth a try, reliably bringing out the best in whatever ingredients it’s combined with — I especially love the way it makes vegan hot chocolate rich and indulgent.
Beyond conventional butters, the proliferation of whole food stores and e-commerce means that the sky’s your nutty limit. At a price, niche suppliers will provide you with nut butters based on pecans, hazelnuts, walnuts, brazil nuts, and pistachios. If you aren’t such a purist, nut butters can be enhanced with other ingredients. There are fewer established combinations, which gives a company like Pip and Nut — ‘Nut Butter Done Better’ is their motto — the freedom to make jars of cherry bakewell almond butter, maple crunch peanut butter, coconut and almond butter, and others, all available for delivery to your door.
If you need a bit more inspiration about what to do with your nut better, the blogosphere has you covered.
The Minimialist Baker has a particularly fantastic recipe for a nut-butter based fudge that’s appetising for vegans and omnivores alike. By contrast, Chocolate Covered Katie’s sweet black bean and nut butter hummus may not be for everyone — but it is absolutely one of my favourites, and you owe it to yourself to try it at least once. Back in the UK, get peanut butter into your baking with help from the Domestic Gothess, and her fabulous recipe for peanut butter brownies. Many recipe-writers focus on peanut butter as an ingredient, but it can be easily replaced with your preference.
If it’s nice to have some new uses for nut butter, it’s also nice to remember its sheer reliability. It’s there for you. As a very sustained consumer of nut butters, my own top tip is a simple one. Spread your choice of nut butter on a slice of granary toast, sprinkle on some chopped dried dates, and wash it down with a cup of redbush tea any time of the day or night. I’ve never even thought about being put off by this snack’s appearance, that realistically, only its mother could love.
If my experience is anything to go by, nut butters are a great way to help you go vegan. But you don’t need to be vegan to eat more nut butter, and less animal produce. A movement like veganuary can feel like an invitation to cut things out of our diets. Yet adding something is a far easier step to take. In other words: find peace at the top, middle and bottom of a tub of nut butter. Forget about fantasies of cheese. And you might just find that plant-based eating has never been easier.
August 2022: I’ve written some more about peanut butter. Click here to see how this simple spread can recession-proof your vegan diet.