No one likes skim milk

I make no secret of the fact that I have a small peanut butter obsession and this is because I feel no shame. Why should I? It brings me great joy and it's kept me alive this long. With the increasing hunger demands of growing and feeding a person, however, it was starting to get a tad out of control. They tell you that you need 300 extra calories a day when you're pregnant and 500 when you're breastfeeding. (Side note: it felt very unfair while pregnant that actually forming a human was less demanding than simply feeding one but now we are on the greener grass side of that fence so I'm fine with the arrangement.) My pregnancy books were careful to tell me that I shouldn't supplement my diet with ice cream and call it a day but they never vilified Skippy so you can probably guess how I met these additional energy needs.

Back when I was a full-time baby carrying and feeding machine (and no I don't mean when I was pregnant, I mean when I couldn't even put B down to pee since he slept on me all day) I had very specific nutritional demands. I needed energy dense foods that were highly portable, could be eaten silently so as not to wake the leech, crumbless so as not to get tiny irritants in his eyes and ears (learned the hard way), and most importantly my food had to be easily eaten with minimal dexterity as I was lucky to have the dedicated service of one entire hand. For months, breakfast was non-crunchy energy bars (crinkly wrapper removed ahead of time) and I spent the rest of the day eating bananas and peanut butter straight from the jar. Once G came home I was able to eat a dinner that would occasionally include vegetables so that was luxurious. In those days, a normal sized PB jar was lucky to make it two days in this house. It was getting a little out of control. It was most important that my baby and I stay alive but I thought it would behoove us both if I made some effort to work in foods that might have slightly different nutrients as well.

Naturally I added different flavors of peanut butter as well as almond butter to the repertoire. Almonds have a different mix of healthy fats and something about omega-3's so I felt good about that and obviously dark chocolate, white chocolate, vanilla, and maple flavorings contain additional vitamins.

Most exciting discovery of that particular era.

 source

It was hard to admit, but I had a problem. A delicious, creamy, sugary problem. I had to stop solely consuming nut butters so I all but banned them from the house. All that was allowed was natural and organic peanut butter which obviously went untouched because it is disgusting.

I can't say for sure that this prohibition was the cause but right around the same time B started adding feedings at night. I blamed teething, solid foods, need for maternal comfort, the full moon, the unfairness of motherhood, distracted eating during the day, etc. but addressing all of these potential causes had absolutely no effect. When my mom or G would give him a bottle (in attempt to determine if B was nursing for comfort or nutrition) he would down 8 oz no problem. The boy was hungry! Although I'm ashamed to say I've fallen off the nut-butter-ban wagon of late, I am thrilled to say that B is back to one reasonably portioned feeding per night. I am well aware of the scientific dangers of mistaking correlation for causation but I think there may be something here.

I have no idea how breastmilk works really but my theory is: with my diet of pure fat, sugar, and oil I basically produce Dairy Queen Blizzard milkshakes that keep B feeling full and perhaps a tad sick. When I made the switch to attempt to eat normally my body was only able to produce skim milk, which is basically like drinking murky water ,which would slowly torture and starve anyone. Now would be the time to buy stock in Skippy, Peanut Butter Co., and Justin's.

Now this is what I like to see in my pantry. Btw, when will Skippy make flavored PB??? The world awaits this.

All you have to do to vote is click the banner! You can vote every day!