Food as Medicine group

We had two great mornings in our food as medicine groups this week - focusing on the health benefits of legumes, beans and lentils.

Here is the Tuesday group, as we sat down for a 4 course lunch together, eating what they had cooked together.

The menu was:

• Lentil and caper pate with lentil chips
• White bean pesto with poppadoms
• Sugar snap pea and blood orange salad
• Moroccan Bean stew (using black beans, garbanzo beans and red lentils)
• Not-so-dumb blondies (using cannellini beans)
• Mandarinquat brownies (using black beans)

Most of us don't get enough fiber in our diets and beans are a wonderful was to increase our fiber intake.  I love using the "Eden Foods" brands of cooked beans in my cooking, as they are cooked with kombu - a sea vegetable that helps to break down the oligosaccharides in beans, which is the part that causes gas.  Soaking your beans helps too - along with good rinsing - as the oligosaccharide is water soluble. Gas shouldn't be your reason for not eating beans! There are many ways to avoid it.

Beans help with :

• stabilizing gut transit time - not too fast so that nutrients can't be absorbed and not too slow so toxins can't be reabsorbed
• heart health, 
• are an EXCELLENT source of anti-oxidants (more than blueberries), 
• help maintain a healthy gut flora
• high in folic acid and B6
• are a good protein source
• high in iron, magnesium and calcium
• a good source of molybdenum
• stabilizing blood sugar levels
• eliminating toxins, carcinogens and excess hormones
• producing butyrate from your gut bacteria which heals and protects the lining of the large investine.

So go eat some beans today!