Healing with Food Article

Beans Build Energy

Accompanying recipe: Beans & Legumes, Dried

Support your endurance with a bowl of beans. Legumes (beans, peas and lentils) are a tonic food for your kidneys and help stabilize blood sugar. They provide substantial energy, a kind of "oomph!" not available from broccoli or bananas.

No wonder beans are a universal image of nurture. Be it a bean burrito, a falafel, or a curried dal, beans are an unpretentious food that is both filling and satisfying. A pot of, beans simmering on the stove evoke home cooking at its humble best.

For millennia, farmers have dried legumes in the field, then shelled, cleaned and stored them. It’s the same today. Beans are unrefined. They’re not parched, polished, extruded, gassed, preserved or colored. Providing they’re organic their earthy sweetness is unadulterated.

According to Oriental Medicine, beans strengthen the kidneys, adrenal glands and nervous system. This promotes physical growth and development and a “grounded” kind of energy.  So if you’re feeling fatigued or mentally overly stimulated, consider beans as a kitchen remedy. A good humus, for example, is both comforting and satisfying.  

While legumes as a category strengthen the kidneys, their color indicates additional medicinal properties. Green-colored beans, like mung beans and split peas, also benefit the liver and gall bladder. Red beans, including adzuki and kidney beans, support the heart. Yellow beans like chickpeas and soy beans support the pancreas and stomach. Navy beans, limas and other white beans energize the lungs and colon. Black beans are doubly supportive to the kidneys.

Beans are among the highest sources of antioxidants. While legumes are predominately carbohydrate, they contain from 17 to 25% protein (except soybeans which have an exceptionally high 38% protein). They are the highest vegetable source of protein making them an invaluable staple for vegetarians. One cup of cooked beans provides from 25 to 50% of the Recommended Dietary Allowance for protein.

Buying Beans
Canned beans are great to have on hand for quick-fix meal. They’re one of the few quality “heat-n-eat” foods.  However, you pay for convenience. One cup of canned beans costs around $.70. While one pound of dry beans costs $1 and yields twelve cups cooked beans!  

When buying canned beans, it's wise to read the ingredient label as some contain chemical additives. Eden Foods is the only brand I know of that uses the natural flavor enhancer and tenderizer, kombu.

Purchase dried beans from a bulk bin or in a see-through wrapper. Favor those with a vibrant look and few, if any, broken or damaged beans.

Beans toughen with time and so, ideally, use them within the year they were harvested.  How do you determine this? It’s not an exact science but I stock up on “good looking” beans in the late fall when it’s likely that the new crop has reached my retailer.

Because beans store well, I purchase my favorite varieties in 25 pound bags as buying bulk saves both money and shopping time.

What about the eye-catching packages of mixed beans?  They’re a marketing gimmick.  Bean varieties differ in their soaking and cooking time; so jumbling them together targets the uninformed cook. 

Quality food stores carry a wide variety of beans. An even wider variety of heirloom varieties are available on the internet. For a treat, try anasazi, cranberry, rattlesnake or soldier beans. Their flavor variations range from subtle to profound.

Soy is Different
Soy beans are in a class unto themselves as they’re inordinately difficult to digest. Unless, that is, you sprout or ferment them into a traditional soy sauce, tamari, natto, miso or tempeh, or process them into tofu or soymilk. See Soy Toxin or Tonic?

For three secrets for a great pot of beans, see accompanying recipe.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood