Pea butter and jam, anyone?

by Janet Kanters

Alberta farmer Joe St. Denis created a product that looks and spreads like peanut butter, only without the allergens. So go ahead, eat your peas.

Almost everyone likes peanut butter, but not everyone can eat it. Indeed, peanut allergies have become the most dangerous allergy in North America. As a matter of fact, almost four million North Americans have nut allergies. For parents of children with nut allergies, it’s a tough and worrisome process to make sure their kids aren’t exposed to nuts. Many Alberta schools insist their lunch rooms, classrooms and playgrounds are peanut-free zones.

Now, a made-in-Alberta, allergy-free alternative is making life easier for peanut butter lovers – kids and adults alike. It’s called pea butter, and don’t worry: it’s not as green as it sounds.

The idea to crush peas to create a spreadable product came from Joe St. Denis, owner and operator of St. Denis Seed Farms Inc. of Legal, Alta., 45 minutes north of Edmonton.

St. Denis, a 20-year pea industry veteran, produces a wide variety of edible peas and beans including green peas, yellow peas, faba beans, zero tanin white faba beans, red and green marrowfat peas, white peas, red peas and, the Solido brown pea, the one pea butter is made from.

This brown pea looks much like a peanut that has been hulled and split. When crushed with canola oil, it even has a nutty flavour. “It’s got a red skin like a peanut and the inside colour is the same as a peanut,” says St. Denis. “But the biggest advantage of this product is for people who are allergic to peanuts. If you can eat pea soup, you can have this product.”

The excitement is spreading

Four years ago, St. Denis started working with the folks at the provincial government’s Food Processing Development Centre in Leduc. The pea butter idea quickly blossomed. St. Denis then travelled to Chicago, Philadelphia and New York to get more ideas from people in the food industry. “We went to different labs and we tried different pieces of equipment, and eventually found the right piece of equipment that allowed us to produce the best product possible,” he says.

On July 12 of this year, St. Denis came up with the long-sought final recipe for pea butter.

“We finally succeeded in getting the nice texture and the correct ‘mouth feel’,” he says. “Already, we’re getting quite a bit of interest with a lot of people wanting it.”

Now, says St. Denis, the real work begins. He’s marketing the product (which is sold under the name NoNuts Peabutter) at some Co-op, IGA and IGA Garden Market stores. As well, NoNuts Pea Butter is available from his Web site – www.peabutter.ca. But one of the biggest hurdles he has to overcome is convincing people that the product not only tastes great, it’s healthy, too.

“NoNuts pea butter is low in saturated fats, gluten-free, has no salt added and has Omega-3 oil,” says St. Denis. “As well, it’s easy to use – very spreadable, just like peanut butter.”

Inside Alberta’s pulse industry

• Alberta grows 20 varieties of peas, four types of faba beans, five varieties of chickpeas, 10,000 acres of lentils and 12 varieties of dry beans. All are edible varieties.
• Most Alberta-grown peas go to China and India.
• Most Alberta-grown chickpeas are exported to Mexico, South America and India.