Peanut Butter: The Vegan Meat

Today I ate a peanut butter sandwich for breakfast. Nothing complicated about that. Just a slice of bread with some seedless raspberry spread and a generous dollop of crunchy peanut butter. It occurred to me that, when in doubt, I turn to peanut butter often to satisfy that protein, rounded, dare I say, meaty, texture and full feeling during a hectic school day.

This reminds me of a conversation I had with a friend of mine, who really got me started on my vegetarian journey (she has been veg for over two years, and tried veganism for a few months). She told me that when she was vegan, she craved peanut butter all the time. Her mouth watered when she thought about that delicious spread: "I ate peanut butter so much when I was vegan. Mmmm, num num." Her lips lapped the plain air in hopes that maybe it would taste like her words. Or she was hung over. Or just plain hungry for our lunch break.

For whatever reason she waxed poetic on the subject of it, I noticed that I too craved peanut butter once I gave up meat as a stable food source. Peanut butter for breakfast, for lunch (the crunchy kind makes it seem more like a meal than a snack), sometimes for a poor-ass dinner; peanut butter with pretzels, with crackers, in your ramen, and on and on. Peta College Vegan Guide has an entire chapter devoted to George Washington Carver's love child, and there are whole books covering all modes of daily eating with a brown, sometimes crunchy spread of deliciousness.

In conclusion to my own waxing poetic on the subject, I think that like other "meaty" substitutes like mushrooms, peanut butter is one of the top foods that satisfy the veg/vegan mouth. And unlike meat, it tastes good with any flavor of jelly.