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!
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