SMALL BUT MIGHTY
Lower cholesterol Stabilize blood sugar levels
Reduce the risk of cancer
Prevent heart disease in people with diabetes
In the annals of the International Federation of Competitive Eating—where men and women stuff their bellies with shocking amounts of food at one sitting—several bean-related records have been set. One man ate 6 pounds of baked beans in less than 2 minutes. Another eater scarfed down more than 5 pounds of pork and beans in less than 2 minutes.
Although gulping this many beans at one time might not be the wisest activity, at least these competitors had sort of the right idea: Beans are a superb addition to a healthy diet.
Despite their small size, beans pack a surprisingly rich and varied array of substances that are vital for good health. Take fiber, for example. “What’s so good about beans, I think, is the high fiber in particular. They’re one of the better sources of dietary fiber there is,” says Joe Hughes, PhD, assistant professor in the nutrition and food sciences program at California State University in San Bernardino, whose research is centered on beans.
What’s especially nice is that they’re high in soluble and insoluble fiber, which have different effects in the body. Oats are one of the few other foods high in both types of fiber, but beans can be used in many more types of dishes than oats, and it’s easier to eat a hearty portion of beans, he points out.
Beans are also a good source of minerals, protein, and, you may be surprised to learn, antioxidants.
While beans aren’t the only food that can help lower cholesterol, they’re certainly one of the best. The soluble fiber in beans is the same gummy stuff found in apples, barley, and oat bran. In the digestive tract, soluble fiber traps cholesterol-containing bile, removing it from the body before it’s absorbed.
“Eating a cup of cooked beans a day can lower total cholesterol about 10 percent in 6 weeks,” says Patti Bazel Geil, MS, RD, a diabetes educator and nutrition author in Lexington, Kentucky, who’s written about the benefits of beans. While 10 percent may not seem like much, keep in mind that every 1 percent reduction in total cholesterol means a 2 percent decrease in your risk for heart disease.
Beans can lower cholesterol in just about anyone, but the higher your cholesterol, the better they work. In a study at the University of Kentucky, 20 men with high cholesterol (over 260 milligrams per deciliter of blood) were given about ¾ cup of pinto and navy beans a day. The men’s total cholesterol dropped an average of 19 percent in 3 weeks, possibly reducing their heart attack risk by almost 40 percent. Even more remarkable, the dangerous low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol—that’s the artery-plugging stuff—plunged by 24 percent.
It appears that all beans can help lower cholesterol, even canned baked beans. In another University of Kentucky study, 24 men with high cholesterol ate 1 cup of canned beans in tomato sauce every day for 3 weeks. Their total cholesterol dropped 10.4 percent, and their triglycerides (another blood fat that contributes to heart disease) fell 10.8 percent.
In further research into the cholesterol-lowering effects of beans and other legumes, authors of a report in the British Journal of Nutrition compiled the findings of 11 studies that looked at the relationship between cholesterol and different types of legumes, such as pinto beans, chickpeas, white beans, and mixed beans (but not soybeans). They found that the beans in these studies lowered total cholesterol by 7.2 percent, LDL (bad) cholesterol by 6.2 percent, and triglycerides by 16.6 percent. The soluble fiber in these foods appeared to be the most important factor responsible for their cholesterol-lowering effect.
Beans play another, less direct role in keeping cholesterol levels down. They’re extremely filling, so when you eat beans, you’ll have less appetite for other, fattier foods. And eating less fat is critical for keeping cholesterol levels low.
Even though he sings the praises of beans, Joe Hughes, PhD, of California State University, acknowledges that it takes time to work your way up to being a regular bean aficionado. If you suddenly start eating them daily, you’re likely to develop gas and bloating. Start out having beans with a meal once a week. After a month, go to twice a week. Keep building gradually. Your digestive tract, and the gas-producing bacteria it contains, will adapt better to this routine.
Keeping blood sugar levels steady is the key to keeping diabetes under control. “Many people don’t realize how good beans are for people with diabetes,” says Geil. In fact, eating between ½ and ¾ cup of beans a day has been shown to significantly improve blood sugar control. And beans provide yet another benefit for people with diabetes, she says. “People with diabetes are four to six times more likely to develop heart disease,” she says. “Eating more beans will help keep their cholesterol low, thereby reducing their risk.”
If you roll right by the dried beans at the supermarket because you don’t have time for all the soaking and boiling and waiting around, put on the brakes. Cooking beans from scratch doesn’t have to be a daylong project, says Patti Bazel Geil, MS, RD. With the quick-soaking method, you can shave hours off the cooking time. Here’s how to do it:
Rinse the beans in a colander, put them in a large pot, and cover with 2 inches of water. Bring to a boil, reduce the heat to medium, and simmer for 10 minutes. Drain the beans, and cover with 2 inches of fresh water. (“Discarding the water that the beans were cooked in gets rid of most of their gas-producing sugars,” Geil explains.) Soak for 30 minutes. Then rinse, drain, and cover with fresh water again. Simmer for 2 hours or until the beans are tender.
Beans are rich in complex carbohydrates. Unlike sugary foods, which dump sugar (glucose) into the bloodstream all at once, complex carbohydrates are digested more slowly. This means that glucose enters your bloodstream a little at a time, helping to keep blood sugar levels steady, says Geil.
Foods’ effect on blood sugar is commonly measured on a scale called the glycemic index, or GI, and beans are a “very good low-GI food” because of their soluble fiber, says Dr. Hughes. This should be good news for the approximately 21 million Americans with diabetes, and the 54 million with “prediabetes,” a condition that causes a rise in blood sugar and usually occurs in people before they develop diabetes.
Unfortunately, Americans on average only eat 17 grams of fiber daily—and people with diabetes only eat 16 grams—according to a survey from the federal government. The American Dietetic Association recommends 25 grams daily.
In a small study from the University of Texas, researchers had 13 people with diabetes follow two diets for 6 weeks each. One diet had 24 grams of daily fiber (8 grams were soluble fiber), and the other diet provided a whopping 50 grams of fiber, half of which was soluble. Compared with when they ate the regular-fiber diet, the people eating the high-fiber diet had better control over their blood sugar and lower insulin. Perhaps the best news is that the subjects were eating regular foods—not taking fiber supplements or eating foods specially fortified with fiber. (Experts had previously declared that it’s difficult to consume a lot of soluble fiber each day without the use of supplements or fiber-fortified foods.)
A nice quality about beans is that they’re available in so many varieties—and you can prepare them in so many ways—that it’s easy to eat beans even several times a day in relatively large quantities to reap their fiber-giving benefits, says Dr. Hughes.
Fruits and vegetables tend to get the spotlight during discussions of foods rich in antioxidants. Indeed, when USDA researchers compiled the antioxidant capacities of hundreds of foods in the American diet, many of these foods stood out. The Granny Smith apple, for example, scored a 5,381 on the measurement of total antioxidant capacity per serving. The artichoke scored 7,904. And the lowbush blueberry got a whopping 13,427.
But several beans more than held their own, too. The pinto bean scored 11,864. And the red kidney bean scored 13,259!
Beans are rich sources of phytochemicals, which are plant components that have antioxidant and other disease-fighting properties, says Dr. Hughes. Beans may contain hundreds of types of antioxidant chemicals. Remember that antioxidants help protect you from cancer by limiting damaging attacks on your cells from free radicals. Plus, unlike some antioxidant-rich plant foods like blueberries, you can put lots of different beans on your plate meal after meal without getting bored or overwhelmed by the flavor.
Some other compounds in beans—like lignans, isoflavones, saponins, phytic acid, and protease inhibitors—have been shown to inhibit cancer-cell growth. These compounds appear to keep normal cells from turning cancerous and prevent cancer cells from growing.
Beans used to be called the “poor man’s meat.” But a more accurate name would be the healthy man’s meat. Like red meat, beans are loaded with protein. Unlike meat, they’re light in fat, particularly dangerous, artery-clogging saturated fat.
For example, a cup of black beans contains less than 1 gram of fat. Less than 1 percent of that comes from saturated fat. Three ounces of lean, broiled ground beef, on the other hand, has 15 grams of fat, 22 percent of which is the saturated kind.
Beans are also a great source of essential vitamins and minerals. A half-cup of black beans contains 128 micrograms, or 32 percent of the Daily Value (DV) for folate, a B vitamin that may lower risk of heart disease and fight birth defects. That same cup has 2 milligrams of iron, 11 percent of the DV, and 305 milligrams of potassium, or 9 percent of the DV. Potassium is a mineral that has been shown to help control blood pressure.
Go for the fiber. While virtually all dried beans are good sources of fiber, some varieties stand out from the pack. Black beans, for example, contain 6 grams of fiber in a half-cup serving. Chickpeas, kidney beans, and lima beans all weigh in at about 7 grams of fiber, and black-eyed peas are among the best, with about 8 grams of fiber.
Enjoy them canned. In general, the dry beans that you cook for yourself have a slight edge over canned beans in terms of retaining nutrients, says Dr. Hughes. However, the average American these days just doesn’t have the time needed to cook dry beans (even with the expedited method featured in the sidebar). If you only have time for canned beans, then by all means eat canned beans, he says. However, canned beans may be higher in sodium, so if that’s a concern, drain and rinse canned beans before using them.
Use gas-deflating spices. Has the fear of uncomfortable and embarrassing gas kept you from reaping beans’ nutritional benefits? Try spicing them with a pinch of summer savory or a teaspoon of ground ginger. According to some university studies, these spices may help reduce beans’ gas-producing effects.
Read the label. Some canned refried beans contain a lot of fat, and some contain little to none, says Dr. Hughes. Be sure to pick a kind that’s low in fat—they still taste great.
Go dark. Buy darker beans for more disease protection. In general, the darker the beans, the more powerful the antioxidants they contain, says Dr. Hughes.
Preheat the oven to 425°F. Tear off 4 pieces of parchment paper, each about 15 inches long. Fold each sheet in half lengthwise, and then open it up so you can see the crease.
In a large bowl, combine all of the ingredients; toss well.
To make each pouch: Mound 1½ cups of the bean mixture on 1 side of the crease. Lift the other side of the parchment over the filling, and fold the edges together around the filling to seal. Repeat with remaining ingredients to make 3 more pouches, then place them on a baking sheet.
Bake until the scallops and shrimp are slightly opaque in the centers, 10 to 12 minutes. To serve, cut an “X” in each pouch, and tear the paper back to reveal the filling.
Makes 4 servings
Cook’s Note: You can use any canned white beans you prefer in this recipe.
Calories: 430
Total fat: 12 g
Saturated fat: 2 g
Cholesterol: 140 mg
Sodium: 655 mg
Dietary fiber: 9 g
Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Add the edamame, and cook for 2 minutes. Drain well.
In a small bowl, whisk together the lemon juice and shallot; slowly whisk in the olive oil. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
In a large serving bowl, combine the edamame, escarole, mint, parsley, and the dressing; season to taste with salt and pepper. Shave the cheese over the salad.
Makes 4 servings
Cook’s Notes: If you like, use arugula or mixed greens instead of escarole. You can also shell and steam fresh edamame for this recipe if you have time.
Calories: 318
Total fat: 18 g
Saturated fat: 7 g
Cholesterol: 28 mg
Sodium: 583 mg
Dietary fiber: 13 g
Place the lentils in a colander and rinse with cold water, then drain. Transfer the lentils to a large saucepan, and add 4 cups water. Bring to a boil over high heat. Reduce the heat to low. Partially cover, and cook until the lentils are tender but not mushy, about 30 to 35 minutes.
Drain the lentils, and set aside. Wipe the pan dry. Add the oil and heat over medium heat. Add the ginger, garlic, curry powder, and salt. Stir for a few seconds, until fragrant. Add the lentils, and stir well to reheat. Remove from the heat.
Squeeze the juice from one half of the lemon, and stir it into the lentils. Cut the remaining half into 4 wedges. Serve the lentils with the lemon wedges.
Makes 4 servings
Cook’s Note: This makes a great meatless meal. Serve it with bread or rice and a steamed vegetable.
Calories: 208
Total fat: 3 g
Saturated fat: 0.3 g
Cholesterol: 0 mg
Sodium: 137 mg
Dietary fiber: 7.4 g