Mr. Bean

Mr. bean, I don't feel you been getting a lot of respect lately.

You are a great source of fibre, protein and carbs as well as many nutrients.

You are low GI and provide long lasting energy.

You are loaded with antioxidents, black beans in particular.

And you are cheap - nothing personal!

What are your main downsides?

Mainly phylates, lectins and flatulence, flatus or gas - as it is commonlly called.

Phylates: can chelate minerals reducing their bio-availability.

Solutions: soaking and cooking well or spouting reduces about half the content.

Also serving with yogurt (lactobacillus) may provide enough phytase enzyme to digest the phylates - tastes good anyway!

Perhaps more appropriate as a mid-day snack so it doesn't interfere with main meal nutrient absorption.

Lectins: can damage intestinal linings in people who are sensitive.

They are found in 30% of all food, not just wheat and beans, but dairy, meat, tubers, grains and seeds. They vary

in strength.

Solutions: Cooking reduces levels quite a bit. Avoid the strongest lectins in castor, soybeans and red kidney beans.

Fermenting reduces levels, so fermented soy/bean products are better.

Certain sugars bind with and block the action of lectins, and supplements have been built around this.

Intestinal linings are weakest during illness, so reducing intake at those times seems appropriate even if not senstive.

Gas: Caused by bacterial action on the high fibre content probably.

Solutions: Soaking, cooking well and chewing well should help make the fibre more easily "digested" by the bacteria and reduce gas.

Beano, Mr. bean's friend.

What do you think of the bean, and how do you use it? Do you feel it can provide good sports nutrition?

I think it's worth considering. Additional suggestions or contrary opinions welcome...

Further reading:

A blog on the bean: http://jdmoyer.com/2011/02/15/to-bean-o ... an-health/

Do lectins cause disease: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1115436/

Eating beans without gas: http://www.savvyvegetarian.com/svreport ... ut_gas.pdf

Novel approach to reducing phylates: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16095846

QFT! I could never give up my sticky, slimy, smelly nattou!

That I haven't tried yet. Will have to, the next time I'm at a Japanese resturant or store!

By the way, found out that apparently the flatulence in beans are caused by the oligosaccharides that we don't have

the enzyme to digest, but the fermenting and intestinal bacteria can. Also, soaking in baking soda apparently can help apparently. What's also interesting is that the oligosaccharides are exactly the class of sugars that deactivates lectins, perhaps making beans less of a concern when eaten non-fermented.

I thought this thread was going to be about Rowan Atkinson

I try to eat more or less paleo but once in a while eat some hummuus or beans without any ill effects really

Haha Rowan is a funny dude. Liked him in the Johnny English series as well!

I know of one prominent paleo blogger who took beans off his top 10 hit list.

Also they go way back, and are the prominant starch on the Indian subcontient -

wheat is in North America and rice is in Asia. Would be curious about East Indian's

health profile but it is hard to compare due to socioeconomic differences, as well

as the different spices that are used. Overall East Indians seem pretty healthy given

their living conditions.

Please thank Mr. Bean for this informative interview for us.

Will do Patrick!

Meant to tell Yuri that I am also do like hummus, chickpea curry (channa) and falafal (with hummus) occassionally.

Love a great falafal - so flavorful!

Bissen you eat Natto?

Ugh...and I thought some of the Northern foods were bad and eaten as a dare. I guess it tastes good compared to some of yours over ther.e

Hahaha! I eat and LOVE nattou! I even make it myself - bought nattou-kin off the internet

I wasn't too impressed with it the first few times I had it, but I came to absolutely love nama tamago nattou. I stayed with a family in Hokkaidou who made it themselves, and so I picked up on it and started doing so, too. Been a while since I've made some, though.

But really, we Danes don't have too many bad things. I guess we have pickled herring, but many foreigners usually don't dislike it. I believe my dad told me of an American who ate it for breakfast. However, it's nothing like Swedish surströmming (which I have not tried, but seen people almost vomit over, just by the smell.)

haha sustroming may smell like a homeless man who vomited on him self and sleeps in a garbage can but it doesn't taste bad. doesn't taste of much really but the texture is bad as well kinda pasty. We usually eat it on some hard bread with onions butter and tomato, then it can be pretty good =D but it would probably be better with just the hard bread, butter, onions and tomatoes

A Japanese study has shown that the smell of a newly opened can of surströmming is the most putrid smell of food in the world, beating similar fermented fish dishes such as the Korean Hongeohoe or Japanese Kusaya

This food even isn't what I was thinking of. An old swede gf told me of a swedish dish where you bury fish in the ground, let it rot, and later dig it up and eat it. Maybe she was thinking of this but I didn't recognize the name of it.

Getting back to beans, ya gotta love rice and beans. Just mix them up together and spice for flavor. Chili with beans is another good dish I ate a few times this week. Only thing is...Eco toilets suck.

Well, if I'm ever offered to try surströmming, I'm suure gonne go for it!

Oh, and about surströmming, I heard that some married couple got an insanely big fine for bringing cans of surströmmin onboard a plain because one or more exploded. One stinky affair!

Another pretty darn food that I must admit I most likely would NOT be able to put in my mouth, is the "cazu frazigu/marzu". A cheese where some fly lay its eggs in it while fermenting, and then the larvaes dig their way out, leaving an enzyme that should make the cheese extra smelly, soft and very strong tasting.

Sorry, I'm getting progressingly off-topic.

I must add that miso is an absolutely wonderful food!

And of course, Miso does not involve rotting food. This is critical. I don't like the tofu in it though.

Well, fermentation is a kind of rotting, I suppose

I like wakame miso.