My love affair with peanut butter

I have had a life-long love affair with peanut butter.

Peanut butter on super fresh bread.

Peanut butter melting on a piece of hot toast.

Peanut butter and honey on fresh bread.

Peanut butter and honey on toast.

Peanut butter and banana on fresh bread.

Peanut butter and banana on toast.

Peanut butter and strawberry jam on fresh bread.

Peanut butter and strawberry jam on toast.

Peanut butter and strawberry jam on saltine crackers.

Peanut butter and brown sugar on fresh bread.

Peanut butter and brown sugar on toast.

Peanut butter on a spoon, just because.

I love peanut butter.

And it HAS to be Kraft.  (I'll actually pass up peanut butter if it is anything but Kraft!)

Smooth is best but Crunchy is next best.

You'll understand when I say I was devastated when I learned, several years ago, that it was my intolerance for peanut butter that had been keeping me in a migraine state.  The term 'intolerance' was used to describe my inability to ingest peanut butter because I don't really have an allergy to it, in the true sense.

I mean, I wasn't going to die if I ate peanut butter (or peanuts).  I was just going to wish I would die.

So some time around 1983 I stopped eating peanut butter (and Planters' dry roasted peanuts -- another favourite) in the interest of heading off my migraines at the pass.  (Yes, my migraines were that bad!)

Other culprits that I was warned to avoid were chocolate (which I actually don't much like anyway so that was an easy one to avoid) and red wine (which I never choose to drink since I hate the taste of it).

My migraines didn't stop entirely but they surely did decrease in frequency. (I had been unknowingly keeping myself in a migraine state by my daily ingestion of peanut butter.)  

We eventually found a treatment that worked for my migraines and I was at least able to function.  (I was still victim to barometric pressure and other triggers that were not always in my control to avoid.)

But back in early January, 2008, a life changing event occurred and since that date I have not had a single migraine from any cause whatsoever.

Some time in mid-2009 I cautiously reintroduced peanut butter to my diet.  WOW.  No migraine. Not even a little bit of a headache.  I've been eating peanut butter every morning on my toast ever since.  Without a hint of a headache.

By Christmas of 2009, (how did I ever manage 25+ years without my beloved peanut butter, I wonder?) when no migraine had yet re-occurred, my very wise little chickadee suggested that I might try chocolate again.

Remember, chocolate is not something I particularly like but one treat I did always enjoy was the box of cherry chocolates that Santa used to bring me every year.  I would eat them whilst I solved my jigsaw puzzle during my holiday from work.  (And I would invariably be plunged into a terrific migraine attack.  Duhhhhhh!)

For Christmas 2009, I received a box of Queen Anne's Cherry Chocolates.  And I ate one every day until they were gone.  No headache ever surfaced.

The gift was repeated for Christmas 2010.

And this Christmas, in addition to the Cherry Chocolates, I also received a bag full of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups (another favourite).

Neither of these goodies will do anything toward helping me with my weight loss efforts but it is my intention to have one of each treat each day until they are gone.

Because I can -- and one only lives once.