Professional Documents
Culture Documents
How To Digest Legumes
How To Digest Legumes
How To Digest Legumes
so y sa u ce t o 1 cup dry legumes. The above salt recommendation is moderate and can be increased if salt is used sparingly in other foods. More salt can be used for legumes than other foods since salt is a digestive aid to high-protein products. 3. Cook legumes with fennel or cumin to help prevent gas. Mexicans prize the herb epazote or wormwood leaf for dispelling gas associated with bean consumption. Epazote (Chenopodium ambrosiodes), related to the common weed pigweed, is now available in America from several herb distributors. It works best freshly picked, then cooked into legumes when they are almost done. It grows readily in most soils. Epazote is also used medicinally to rid the body of worms. Soak legumes for 12 hours or overnight in four parts water to one part legume. For best results, change the water once or twice. Lentils and whole dried peas require shorter soaking, while soybeans and garbonzo beans need to soak longer. Soaking softens skins and begins the sprouting process, which eliminates phytic acid, thereby making more minerals available. Soaking also promotes faster cooking and improved digestibility, because the gas-causing enzymes and trisaccharides in legumes are released into the soaking water. Be sure to discard the soaking water. For improved flavor and digestion, more nutrients, and faster cooking, place soaked kombu or kelp seaweed in the bottom of the pot. Add 1 part seaweed to 6 or more parts legumes. Use seaweed-soaked water to cook grains and vegetables. After bringing legumes to a boil, scoop off and discard foam. Continue to boil for 20 minutes without the lid at beginning of cooking to let steam rise. This helps to break up and disperse the indigestible enzymes. If problems with gas persist, the following two suggestions are very useful. Pour a little apple-cider, brown-rice, or white-wine vinegar into the water in the last stages of cooking legumes. For salad beans, marinate cooked beans in a solution of 2/3 vinegar and 1/3 olive oil at least one-half hour before serving. Combining vinegar with legumes softens them and breaks down protein chains and indigestible compounds. Sprout legumes yourself to break down their proteins into amino acids, the starches and trisaccharides into simple sugars, and to create valuable enzymes and vitamins. Sprouting legumes until they have rootlets maximizes their digestibility. Lentils, mung, and aduki beans sprout most easily.
Reference Pitchford, Paul. Healing with W hole foods. Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 1993. rev. 13-Jun-13 clinic/handout/legumes 2