Manteca de Mani

So, I love peanut butter. For those that know me well, that is a bit of an understatement. In fact, I will go so far as to say I am OBSESSED with peanut butter!

I hadn't realized just how much I love PB until after 2 months without it in BA, my boyfriend brought me a couple jars of the all-natural, chunky stuff. I was in heaven! At that point, I requested a couple more jars from my parents before their arrival to BA.

Here, in La Plata, I love to sit down and eat some peanut butter with a banana after a work-out at the gym or doing some yoga. Last week, my host parents had some friends over after work. They were sitting in the backyard enjoying some snacks with their mate when I get home from the gym. I noticed that they had some peanuts out (the kind still in the shell) so I sat down with them to partake in the conversation and enjoy a post-workout protein snack of peanuts. After about 10 minutes of me ravaging the peanuts, there was a nice-sized pile of shells in front of me. I noticed some looks that passed back and forth between my host parents and then my host mom looked at me and said "do you know that those are fattening?"

My jaw almost hit the floor! Here they were chowing down on potato chips, Cheeto-like puffs, cookies, crackers, fried-sticks of some sort and they thought that natural peanuts right from the shell were too fattening! Not to mention, the assortment of pizzas, pastas, and empanadas that they make for dinner.

I responded a bit baffled with a line about post-workout protein needs. By now, they have gotten use to my PB consumption and they find it is a bit humorous. Whenever guests are over (quite frequently, because my host family is very social), my host mom insists that they try it.

Obviously, there is a big lack of nutrition education here. Both of my host parents frequently complain about how they want to lose weight, but we eat dinner after 10pm usually. This Sunday, I am going to make them Sunday brunch (some healthy, thinking breakfast burritos) with another FSD intern and her family. Hopefully, this will start a conversation on healthy-eating and eating habits...