Jason Cohen is the man behind Holy Butter Peanut Butter, an all-natural peanut butter. He is based in Modiin, Israel
It was all due to a serendipitous search for quality peanut butter. As an anaesthesiologist and interventional pain-management physician with a medical consultancy, I traveled every four to six weeks from Israel to New York, and that was disrupted during the initial weeks of COVID. My family realized we had run dry of the Smuckers organic peanut butter I’d often bring back from abroad. Peanuts are an extremely healthy source of nutrition — of good carbohydrates and healthy fat — but the peanut butter sold here wasn’t the quality we were used to. I started wondering about what goes into peanut butter and how it’s made, and soon, I was scouring the Internet for a deeper understanding of peanut butter production.
I contacted the largest nut importers in the country. Did you know that Israel is regarded as growing the best peanuts in the world? But ironically, more than 90 percent of the peanuts sold here are imported from China! Most if not all of the peanut products sold here are made from imported peanuts or peanut powder. The countries we import from have lower health standards, and the regulations there are troubling — the soil is full of numerous toxins, including nicotine. Further investigation brought me into the Israeli agricultural world, global leaders in agri-tech, and the Israel Groundnuts Board, which oversees the production and marketing of peanuts in the country. There, I learned that almost 60 percent of peanuts grown in Israel are exported to Europe.
Before the recipe, I had to source the ingredients — that took a couple of months. As a wine enthusiast with familiarity in how much the terroir — natural environment, including soil composition and climate — contributes to the final product, I thought the same might apply to peanuts. I visited various growing regions, tasting different species of peanuts native to IsraeI. I decided to source peanuts from farmers in the Negev — the sandy soil distinctive to that area produced the best peanuts for our purposes — and began roasting them in different configurations, varying temperatures, skin on and off, and more. I also imported a grinding machine and converted my machsan under my house into a factory, where I began trialing different grinding textures.
I knew I wanted something natural. Holy Butter Peanut Butter has zero sugar, zero salt, and zero added oils. I like to say that the only ingredients are Israeli peanuts and ruach hakodesh. Whereas commercial peanut butters like Skippy and Jif introduce sugar and palm oil, a saturated fat that contributes to weight gain and elevated cholesterol levels, Holy Butter Peanut Butter contains only the peanuts’ natural unsaturated fats, which lower bad cholesterol, raise good cholesterol, and are heart healthy.
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