The Almond Butter Lesson (From a Recovered Anorexia-Sufferer)

If you know me in real life, you know that I absolutely adore nut butters.

And if you’ve been in my kitchen in real life, you know that on a whole new level. I almost always have more than one type of nut or seed butter open and ready to spoon from or top with, from flavoured peanut butters to cashew, almond, and sunflower seed butter.

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I also always buy nuts-only butters– ie., the only ingredient you’ll find in these jars is the nut itself. I make this decision both according to my taste buds, which are partial to the unsweetened, raw nuttiness of the one-ingredient varieties, and health reasons, as the other ingredients added to many popular nut butters not only deter their flavour in my opinion, but are usually pure junk.

So, the other day, when I realized that the almond butter I bought from my usual brand was a variety I don’t usually buy that contained palm oil and organic cane sugar in addition to almonds, I was annoyed at myself for having a bit of a freakout. I felt stupid for having made such a “careless mistake.”

Luckily, my thoughts rambled, I caught it before I’ve opened the jar. I’ll have to dig up the receipt and exchange it.

It didn’t take too long for me to stop dead in my thoughts, and question them.

Did I hate the taste of sugary almond butter? Absolutely not. It was a close second taste-wise to unsweetened almond butter. So, would a version of Cassie that had not been tainted by an eating disorder be thinking about taking a bus ride back to the grocery store to exchange sweetened almond butter with palm oil for unsweetened… or would that version of Cassie not have even noticed?

It is these kind of thoughts that I am grateful for in their opportunity to take captive and bring to Christ. If I HATED sugary almond butter, that may have been a reason to return it. But I think I can safely say that no seasoned nut-butter-lover would turn down a jar of ANY variety. So, what did I proceed to do? Grab the nearest nut-butter-dipping vehicle– on this particular day, a gala apple–, dunk a slice of it into the sugary almond butter, sprinkle-sprinkle some cinnamon and sea salt, and call it a snack well done.