Mention “Peanut Butter, mayonaise and pickles” to most people, and they shudder, turning the most delicate shade of green.  But this has been one of my favorite mid-day meals for years.

A conceinechous mother on a lean budget doesn’t eat the best food of the day for her own lunch time meal.  She saves the “good” food for feeding her family when they are home from work or school.  However, if she is planning to function well, it is still necessary to maintain a decent level of nutrition.

I started eating peanut butter, butter and pickle sandwiches one summer during my homesteading phase.  Mayonnaise tastes better, but butter has the valuable property of not spoiling as quickly when not refrigerated.  Attempting “back-to-the-land” on a shoestring gets to be rather like one very long camp-out without the benefits of returning home to a refrigerator, and other modern conveniences.  Returning to civilization, I still was on that same old shoe-string budget, and needed something I could take for lunch (refrigerator provided at my place of employment) or snack on that wouldn’t deprive the rest of the household.  I’m not super fond of sweets, as a rule, and quickly tired of peanut butter and jelly.

These days, while I could probably afford something else, I find that the combination of smooth, creamy peanut butter, wheat bread, tangy mayo and crunchy pickles just does something nice for the taste buds.  It is kind to the mouth, easy to chew (my dentition isn’t all that great these days), doesn’t require cooking and doesn’t break the bank at the super-market.  AND I like the taste.  (Besides, it makes my kids and grandkids roll their eyes, and twirl their fingers beside their ears, insinuating that Gram is crazy.  If the kids aren’t terminally embarrassed at least twice a day, you probably aren’t doing your job as a grandparent.)

Today, I decided it might be fun to read the labels on my favorite treat, and see just exactly what it is I’m eating.  This is partly inspired by my recent visit to the George Washington Carver monument.  One of George’s motivations in creating peanut butter was to turn those good old goober peas into something the elderly could eat.  He considered peanuts to be just about a miracle food–so lets see what a little lable reading turns up:

My favorite brand of peanut butter is Hallam’s.  It is produced in Ozark, Mo., and the only ingredient is peanuts.  Yep, that’s right.  No additives, nothin’ but good old goober peas.  In a two tablespoon serving you get 16 grams of fat–the good news is that only 2 grams of that is the bad saturated fat–the rest is all good fats.  That gives you 25% of your daily fat allowance.  Kinda hefty there, but depending on what else you are eating…Well, lets read on.  Potassium, 210 mg, 6% daily need.  Seven grams of carbohydrates, three grams fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 8 grams of protein.  Daily vitamins:  Calcium, 2%, Iron 4% (which was probably one reason I loved the stuff.  I was iron-starved in our homesteading days), Vitamin E 10%, Niacin 20%, and Folic Acid 10%. Totals out 140 calories per serving.  Well, not a complete food by any means.  Let’s see what the other parts of this sandwich have.

Two slices of split-top wheat bread (not my favorite, but what was in the house today) from Aldi’s :  fat grams: 2;  Iron, 8%, Thiamin b1, 20%, Riboflavin b2, 8%, Niacin, 12%, folic Acid 12%.  Fiber, 2 grams, sugars 2grams, protein 2grams, 140 calories, 2 of which are from fat.

Now, lets stop here a minute and talk about B vitamins.  There are 8 B vitamins that are recognized as being vital to human health.  B12 is the only one that does not occur naturally in vegetables, and is the one that gives Vegans trouble nutritionally speaking.  The other thing about these little vital amines is that if you get the amount of them out of balance, you kind of put your system in a tail-spin.  I made it my business to know about this stuff when I was feeding kids, and have kind of maintained an interest ever since; eating is on my list of good things to do–mostly.

Here are a list of the lil dolls:

• Vitamin B1 (thiamine)  
• Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)
• Vitamin B3 (niacin and nicotinamide)
• Vitamin B5 (pantothenic acid)
•  Vitamin B6 (pyridoxine, pyridoxal, and pyridoxamine)
•  Vitamin B7 (biotin), also known as vitamin H
•  Vitamin B9 (folic acid), also known as vitamin M
•  Vitamin B12 (various cobalamins; commonly cyanocobalamin in vitamin supplements)

Let’s now go back to my lunch sandwich:

Mayonnaise was the next topping to go on.  So let’s do a little label reading again:  This is probably the least healthy thing on the menu.  containing 100 calories per tablespoon, mostly derived from fat, it seems to be pretty nutritionally null.  The pickles add crunch, 25 calories per three chips (I had five), and not much else except some fiber and flavor.  Hmmm….

So a little math gets us:

•  Fat:  18 grams
•  Calories:  380
•  Vitamin B1 (thiamine)                20
•  Vitamin B2 (riboflavin)               8%
•  Vitamin B3 (niacin and nicotinamide)  32%
•  Vitamin B9 (folic acid), also known as vitamin M 32

So…with mayo, you get a bit of fiber, some calories, and enough B vitamins to get your system hunting around for where’s the rest of the complex?

Now back in the bad old days when we were struggling to survive, I used to use butter and blackstrap molasses with my peanut butter and pickles…wonder what that would do…hmmm.

A serving of Molasses would add 58 calories, more iron, and some calcium.  Butter adds another 140 calories, some vitamin A, more calcium and iron.

I look at this somewhat askance.  No wonder I was hungry and grouchy a lot of the time!  There is no way any of this adds up to a complete protein.

Let’s take a look at what got left out: B5, B6, and that all important, b12.  Oh…and some other vitamins that are rather important: C & A…

How could this tasty snack be shoved over into becoming a complete meal? 

A search of nutritiondata.com turns up Redbull energy drink…ew!  No, this cannot be the only answer!

I haul out my copy of Prescription for Nutritional Healing, by Dr. James. F. Balch, published 1997.   It seems   B12 is found in eggs, and sea vegetables such as dulse, kelp, kombu and nori as well as in soybeans and soy products.  Apparently the mayonnaise, which had both egg and soy products in it, didn’t have enough b12 to reach the legal limit for listing; or maybe the manufacturers didn’t think it was important.  However, it shows that my internal system/taster wasn’t that far off in adding mayo to my peanut butter.  Maybe next time I should try a sprinkling of sea weed?  Or perhaps…just borrow a bottle of my roomie’s beer…hops is listed as a source of b12.  Only problem with that last…I really don’t like the taste of beer. 

Seriously though, adding a sprinkling of kelp, and some black walnuts to my sandwich, maybe a hard-boiled egg and a glass of V-8, I would have a fairly decent lunch.  Maybe not something to live on all the time, but not bad at all.

The other thing to think about is cost.  Nutrition vs. cost is always a primary issue.

Hallam’s peanut butter:  4.50 a jar; That’s about 255 servings per jar.  Bread runs about  2.00 a loaf, about 18 slices per loaf.  Mayo:  according to the lable, there are about 64 servings per jar (as per label) at 3.50 per jar.

Pickles:  about .02 per slice.  Seaweed: Pricey.  The best I found on the internet was from a company in Maine, Maine Coast Sea Vegetables.  I think I can get it from a little Japanese store locally, but I’m too lazy to drive over there and look.  $4.95 for 2 oz.  of seaweed.  Well, if you consider it as a supplement or spice…maybe.  Not sure how that would stack up in boosting vitamin intake, however.  Boiled egg:  Eggs are almost 2.00 a dozen now; but that still may make it the supplemental bargain, at about .16 an egg.

So…lets say:  about .02 for a serving of peanut butter, .22 for 2 slices of bread, .05 for a dollup of mayo, .10 for pickles, a pinch of kelp at about .50 a sprinkle…

That would make a sandwich costing about 89 cents.  Add a hard-boiled egg, just to be darned sure you get all those b vitamins, that’s another .16, a can of V-8 at about a 1.00 a can gives you your cooked veg, and top it off with a peice of fruit at about .50, you have a pretty decent lunch for about $2.50.  Too pricey?  Drink water, grow your own tomato, and skip the fruit.  Wonder what it would take to grow seaweed?