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Soak Your Beans
On their face, legumes appear to be
rich in minerals. But you are absorbing only about half of the
mineral content of your legumes that you deserve to be absorbing.
To rebuild from depression, we need our zinc, magnesium, and iron.
If beans make up a large part of your diet, there is a real easy
way to increase your absorption of these minerals.
Simple change: Soak
your legumes overnight in very warm water (140 degrees Fahrenheit)
to reduce their phytic acid content.
Big effect: Increase
your absorption of minerals in those legumes by
50-100%.
Skeptical? Read on.
In the book I describe the research on phytates and human
digestion. Phytates matter. They do decrease our body’s ability to
absorb vital minerals. See the book excerpt on phytates from
Chapter 14 here. In this report I will provide
additional research on legumes and phytates.
Legumes, grains, nuts, and seeds have phytic acid. The phytate
level varies across these food groups and within the groups. Higher
levels of phytates are bad from a mineral digestion point of view.
Soybeans as a class are very high in phytates as are peanuts. The
rest of the legume world varies but all have phytates and should be
prepared properly to give your body more depression-busting
minerals.
Can I just cook out phytates?
Sorry, no.
Phytates are not cooked out all that effectively. Note in the
figure below that in a 1980 study of phytate levels in three cooked
beans, kidney beans retained 92% of their phytates after cooking,
black eyed peas retained 87%, and mung beans retained 64%.
What if I sprout
them?
Some
people germinate their beans – they soak them and then let them
sprout until they form little tails. Sprouting increases the
vitamin content and, to some degree, it reduces the phytic acid
levels. Note in the figure below that after five days of sprouting,
chick peas maintained about 60% of their phytate content and
lentils retained about 50% of their original phytic acid content.
Cooking on top of germination will reduce the content further but
if your main aim is to eat chili beans rather than bean sprouts,
there is an easier and more effective method.
Soak them.
My mom used to soak her beans so that they would cook much more
quickly. It saved her cooking time and, unbeknownst to her, it
increased her mineral absorption because it reduced the phytic acid
content.
In the figure below I present the phytates remaining after 18 hours
of soaking. Great northern beans maintained 30% of their original
phytic acid content, pinto beans 47% and kidney beans 48%. These
results are better than cooking and germination and there should be
added phytate loss in cooking these soaked legumes. However, we can
do even better.
Soak them in very
warm water.
One study soaked California small white beans for three hours at
various temperatures. In the figure below I summarize the findings.
Temperatures too hot or too cold were not very effective at
reducing phytates. The most effective soaking temperature was 140º
Fahrenheit.
Keep in mind that the temperature study soaked the beans for only
three hours. The soaking study soaked them for 18 hours. At 140º
Fahrenheit the temperature study reduced in three hours about the
same percentage of phytates as the soaking study that soaked beans
for 18 hours at room temperature.
Both time and temperature matter.
Soak your beans
overnight in very warm water in a warm space in your
house.
With a small amount of preparation, you will save cooking time and
you will give your body more depression-busting minerals.
My
method:
Warm
your water in a kettle and combine boiling water with your filtered
or tap water. Cover the beans with water and put them in a warm
place. I begin to soak my beans in the morning on the day before I
plan to cook them. As they absorb water, I add more warm water. I
don’t pretend to achieve or maintain 140 º Fahrenheit, but I give
the beans plenty of soaking time to make up for my lack of
temperature monitoring. You will find that with this method, you
will digest the beans better too.
After soaking, I rinse the beans and cook them according to the
recipe. They will cook much more quickly than a recipe that starts
with beans that are not soaked.
For the purists: pH
levels
Purists concerned about the phytic acid level will also add
something acid to the water. An acid pH will be more effective at
breaking down the phytates. However, I don’t recommend this
approach because you will sacrifice flavor and texture.
We conducted an experiment with a recent batch of beans. We soaked
them both as described above but we added some cultured milk to one
to make the soaking solution more acid.
Both batches cooked fairly well, though the acid solution beans
were a bit more crunchy. Furthermore, in a blind taste test, both
my mom and I picked the regular water beans as the standout in
flavor. The herbs and spices used in seasoning permeated the beans
much better if they were soaked in plain water. With a long soaking
time and in a warm temperature, there is no reason to sacrifice
flavor.
~~~
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DISCLAIMER: Information on this web
site is provided for informational purposes only and is not
intended as a substitute for the advice provided by your physician
or other healthcare professional. Consult with your physician
before making any changes to your diet.