Which nut butter is nutritionally and environmentally best?
The world is nuts for alternative nut butters! While grocery store shelves used to be stocked only with a few different varieties of peanut butter (salted vs unsalted, anyone?), these days you can find everything from pistachio and rose to spicy chai almond and beyond.
But the nut butter boom comes with an overwhelming number of choices. You might have a taste preference—but which butter is better for your health? And how do they rate in terms of environmental and ethical concerns? We decided to find out. Read on to learn what nut reigns supreme for its nutrient composition and minimal environmental footprint.
Health impacts per 2 tbsp serving
Each nut butter has its own unique health profile. Peanut butter is excellent at supporting metabolism and the development of cells and bone and immune health, while sunflower seed butter is high in folate, which is especially important for pregnant women. You might reach for pecan butter if you’re looking to stock up on healthy fats, or cashew for high levels of copper.
Almonds and almond butter are high in monounsaturated fats, which can help reduce LDL levels, reducing the risk of stroke and heart disease, and may have benefits including lowered blood pressure, risk of diabetes, obesity, and metabolic syndrome. Consuming almonds may also benefit your gut microbiome.
Walnuts are a source of monounsaturated fats and alpha-linolenic fatty acid (ALA), a type of healthy omega-3 fat. Research suggests that ALA is beneficial for heart health by reducing bad cholesterol, blood pressure, and inflammation. Walnuts may possess anti-inflammatory properties that may help improve chronic inflammation and brain health
One health aspect that you should consider with all nuts is the ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 3 fatty acids. Ideally, we should be consuming a 1:1 ratio, but nuts are almost all higher in O6 than O3, and O6 is linked to inflammation and heart disease. So if you eat nut butter, try to pick an option with a lower ratio.
Because there’s so much information to parse, we’ve put together this helpful nut health heat map so you can compare options side by side. Green for good, red for reduce.
Water footprint data: https://greenecofriend.co.uk/how-eco-friendly-are-nuts/
Environmental footprint
Peanut butter
Sometimes described as nature’s “zero-waste” plant, peanuts are sustainable due to the high rate of use for every part of the organism. Unlike other nuts, everything from peanuts’ roots to their hulls are utilized, meaning the processing of peanut butter produces very little waste compared to other nuts.
Peanuts require less water and have the smallest carbon footprint of any nut. It takes 3.2 gallons of water to grow one ounce of peanuts, but it takes more than 28.7 gallons to grow one ounce of almonds. And due to their nitrogen fixing abilities, peanut plants have a unique ability to improve soil. Peanut plants take nitrogen from the air and produce their own in the ground, which benefits other crops, and makes them a useful choice for farmers practicing crop rotation.
Overall, peanuts are an environmentally responsible choice for nut butter enthusiasts.
Almond butter
You probably have heard about almond farming's water use problem. 17% of all agricultural water in California is used to grow almonds, approximately 5.7 million acre-feet of water total. It takes about 12 litres of water to grow a single almond—and with about 150 almonds in a cup of almond butter, that’s truly a staggering amount of water.
In addition, due to the nature of the production chain, almond farming has a negative impact on the environment. California produces the majority of commercially available almonds, growing around 80% of all almonds on the market. As a result, almonds must be exported to other locations before they can be processed into butters and consumed, with around 70% of the overall yield going out of state. Food transportation is responsible for around 6% of greenhouse gas emissions, so while there are many bigger offenders, the distance travelled to supply many regions of the world with this product means they have a significant carbon footprint.
Pesticides are also a concern when it comes to the sustainability of almond farming. More pesticides are used on almonds than any other crop in the state of California. One of the most widely used pesticides in almond farming is glyphosate, commercially known as Roundup. 85% of all almonds on the market are treated with Roundup.
One critical review on glyphosate found that the chemical had been reported to cause an elevated risk of cancer, endocrine-disruption, celiac disease, autism, effect on erythrocytes, leaky-gut syndrome, and other ailments, and had been reclassified as “probably carcinogenic” under Group 2A by the International Agency for Research on Cancer in 2015.
Aside from health concerns associated with the pesticide, Roundup is toxic to bees, which are essential for pollinating almond trees. Its use significantly contributes to the steep decline in bee populations that has been seen in recent years. Pesticides also seep into the groundwater supply, contaminating the already limited supply of water in California and making it unsafe for human consumption.
Because of these factors, almond butter is one of the least environmentally friendly nut butters on the market.
Sunflower seed butter
Sunflower crop is often labeled as environmentally-friendly due to its need for limited amounts of nitrogen fertilizer, no irrigation, and limited use of pesticides. In addition, sunflowers have potential for providing multiple ecosystem services in diverse cropping systems, feeding pollinators and supporting a diverse array of wildlife, contributing to local biodiversity by providing beneficial insects a habitat and food source. These characteristics can help reduce the use of natural resources and lessen its environmental impact compared to more intensive crops, as sunflowers can help maintain the health of ecosystems and support the pollination of nearby crops.
Like peanuts, sunflowers are a suitable crop for crop rotation. As a deep-rooted plant, it helps break down soil compaction and improve soil structure and quality. These deep roots also lessen the plants’ need for water, allowing it access to deeper water sources and reducing the need for irrigation. In addition, sunflower is highly efficient in nutrient extraction, reducing soil depletion and supporting the cultivation of other crops in ensuing seasons. Sunflowers have the ability to extract nutrients from the subsoil, helping to unlock nutrients in the soil and making them available to other crops in rotation.
Lastly, sunflowers are effective photosynthesizers, capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the air and converting it into biomass. Through this process, sunflower cultivation contributes to carbon capture and storage, helping to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions and combat climate change.
While a less common nut butter option than peanuts, sunflowers are an environmentally friendly alternative.
Cashew butter
Cashew butter is harder to find than other nut butters, and is often more expensive. This is because ethically sourced cashews tend to be more expensive than other tree nuts, due to the labor and time required to shell them by hand. Sadly, like with many agricultural crops and commodities, exploitation often occurs along multiple links of the supply chain.
Still, compared to other tree nuts, like such as walnuts, hazelnuts, almonds, and pistachios, which tend to be fairly water intensive, cashews have a smaller water footprint. From a human rights perspective, they are most frequently grown and harvested from trees in their natural environment, where they can be more sustainably grown. Cashew farming in Vietnam, Thailand and India typically occurs on small or plantations that use minimal fertilizers or pesticides, and support family farmers.
Cashew crops also encourage species richness. Compared to other tropical crops like coffee, cashew trees attract and support local pollinators, providing them with a source of food and shelter, and encouraging the pollination of neighboring crops, reducing monoculture.
If you’re looking for a tree nut butter, cashews are a more responsible choice than other more popular alternatives, and may be best from a human rights perspective.
Pistachio butter
Sadly, pistachios have the distinction of being one of the most water intensive nuts to grow, a major issue since the majority of the pistachios grown in America are cultivated in drought prone California. Producing one pound of pistachios requires approximately 5,000 liters of water.
Still, pistachios do require less water than almonds, and some people call them the crop of the future due to their adaptability to changing temperatures
While not as much information is available about pistachios compared to other more commonly available nut butters, based on water consumption alone this butter ranks low on the list of sustainable nut butters.
Hazelnut butter
Hazelnuts provide a host of climate-related benefits. As a perennial plant, hazelnuts require less water, store more carbon, and reduce soil erosion compared to annual crops. They also require minimal maintenance, and can be grown on traditional agricultural land or hilly or sloping land. They’re extremely drought resistant, and can foster biodiversity and support pollinators.
The World Wildlife Fund describes hazelnuts as ideal crops, which can thrive despite tough soil, drought, and other harsh growing conditions, and require no pesticides. The tree’s extensive root systems are excellent at filtering pollutants from groundwater.
Overall, hazelnut butter makes for a relatively environmentally responsible nut butter option.
Walnut butter
When you consume walnut butter, make sure it’s organic and non GMO—as organically grown walnuts are more sustainable than their conventionally grown counterparts, although harvesting still involves a lot of heavy machinery, and thus considerable energy. Organic walnut production does not pollute or damage the air, soil, water or local native animal life.
Research shows that compared to almonds, brazil nuts, cashews, chestnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts, pistachios, sesame seeds and sunflower seeds, walnuts are one of the most sustainable nuts when considering carbon footprint, land use and water use. It takes 4,209 litres of water to produce a pound of walnuts.
Whenever possible, try to source nut butters made with fair trade walnuts. While walnut production as a whole doesn’t have any major issues with worker exploitation, harvesting the nuts is hard work and workers may suffer from dehydration and sunstroke if they’re employed by unethical employers. The workers tend to be low paid and health and safety infractions may go unreported due to the fear of losing work.
Overall, walnuts are a sustainable nut butter choice, as long as you source butter made from organic and fair trade nuts.
Pecan butter
Due to their shallow roots, pecan trees grown in arid climates require significant irrigation support to thrive. There isn’t much information about the environmental impact of pecans online, although they do seem to have a medium CO2e figure and average water footprint compared to other nuts.
Pecans perform well on the Environmental Working Group’s food scores, which ranks foods by considering its nutrition, processing and environmental concerns. Because they are grown domestically, pecans also rack up shipping miles, making them a less carbon intensive choice.
Due to Chinese demand, pecan cultivation is growing across the globe, where farmers are shifting to more uniform, cultivated varieties which are better suited to processing. This threatens the stock of wild plants.
Overall, pecans are a reasonably sustainable choice compared to other nut options.
Additives and toxin concerns
Generally, the additives used in nut butters seem to be the same across the board, varying by brand, not nut type.
Many brands add sugar, vegetable oil or seed oils, and trans fats that can reduce its nutritional value, although additive free versions of peanut and some other more common butters are widely available. If you’re concerned about additives, take the time to read your labels. A good, additive free nut butter should have only one or two ingredients: the nuts themselves, and added salt, if you choose a salted variety.
However, some nuts are associated with specific health concerns. Sunflowers are excellent improvers of soil quality, and can remove heavy metals including lead from the soil. People have long made colloquial claims for sunflower seeds being high in lead, and one test did indeed find elevated heavy metal levels in sunflower seeds. Walnuts may also uptake heavy metals from soils.
Cashew nuts can produce a compound called acrylamide when they are roasted using heat, which has been identified as a probable carcinogen in large doses. Truly raw cashews are toxic, although so called “raw” cashews sold in stores are processed before sale to ensure they’re safe to consume.
Pecans contain a toxin called juglone, which in high enough doses can induce oxidative stress, cell membrane damage, and apoptosis and necrotic cell death. Pecans are also highly prone to an aflatoxin-containing mold called aspergillus, although it is mostly removed by the processing done to the nuts before sale and consumption.
Lastly, there has been some concern that consuming peanuts may expose you to aflatoxins, which are toxins produced by a mold that grows on nuts, seeds, and legumes, including peanuts. However, according to the National Peanut Board modern food safety standards mean that your risk of being exposed to aflatoxin contamination via commercially grown peanuts or peanut butter is close to zero.
The Takeaway: Which Butter is Better?
So, given all that, which nut butter is best for the planet, your ethics, and your health?
Drumroll please….it honestly might be good, old fashioned peanut butter.
While we hate to disappoint fans of the many exotic and interesting new nut butters on the market, peanut is a classic for a reason. Let’s start with health. Peanut butter is highest on the protein scale, with respectable levels of copper and magnesium, a not terrible Omega 6 to 3 ratio, minimal toxin concerns, and a reasonable amount of fiber.
However, it’s from an environmental and ethical perspective that the humble peanut truly shines. Not only is it one of the most sustainable, water friendly, and soil regenerative nut butter options, peanuts are also commonly grown in the USA, so you can easily find one with a more minimal carbon footprint and shorter shipping distance. This hometown hero status also is why peanut farming is less likely to have ethical issues, at least theoretically, with farms under the purview of the American government and various human rights organizations.
Peanut butter gets a bad health rap for the many varieties that come stocked with sky high levels of added sugar and palm oils, but a natural option won’t have these additives. Just look for a glass jar with one ingredient, or two if you like salt, and you’re in for a good time.
In our peanut butter sourcing we wanted to find products that use simple and organic ingredients, local farming, and toxin testing. It was a high bar to clear, and we were very excited to find Georgia Grinders organic creamy and crunchy peanut butters to offer at Radius. From our research, this is the only organic 100% American grown, processed, and shelled peanut butter; all from the great state of Georgia. In addition to their high sourcing standards, Georgia Grinders does regular lab testing for aflatoxins and other pathogens to guarantee nut butter purity and safety. Their butter is organic, and contains just two ingredients (peanuts and salt). This is the best peanut butter in the biz!
Ultimately, the nut butter that’s right for you depends on your personal tastes, health goals, and ethical and environmental concerns, so get out there and experiment. And don’t shy away from nut butter blends that balance out the pros and cons of each nut.
