Advanced Search
Current and Breaking News for Professionals, Consumers and Media




Food and Nutrition Author: Staff Editor Last Updated: Sep 7, 2017 - 10:06:33 PM



Fast-cooking Dry Beans Provide More Protein, Iron Than 'slower' Varieties

By Staff Editor
Dec 21, 2016 - 9:30:37 AM



Email Newsletter icon, E-mail Newsletter icon, Email List icon, E-mail List icon Sign up for our Ezine
For Email Marketing you can trust


Email this article
 Printer friendly page
(HealthNewsDigest.com) - Beans are a versatile, inexpensive staple that can boost essential nutrients in a diet, especially for people in low-resource areas where food options are limited. To get the most out of these legumes, new research suggests choosing fast-cooking dry beans could be the way to go. A study in ACS' Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that fast-cooking beans retained more protein, iron and other minerals than "slower" dry beans.
According to the World Health Organization about 2 billion people around the world are estimated to be deficient in key vitamins and minerals, including iron and zinc. Dry beans could help address these deficiencies, but they often take a long time to cook. This can deter people from adding them to meals. To prepare food, many people with limited resources rely on burning wood, charcoal or other biofuels that can require a lot of time to gather or a relatively high percentage of their income. For those reasons, faster-cooking beans would be a good dietary option, but whether they carry the same nutritional value as slower-cooking varieties was unknown. So Karen A. Cichy, from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and colleagues set out to test them.
The researchers analyzed the nutritional value of 12 fast-, moderate- and slow-cooking dry bean cultivars from four classes: yellow, cranberry, light red kidney and red mottled. The speedier beans maintained higher protein and mineral content after they were prepared than the moderate- and slow-cooking varieties. For example, the fast-cooking yellow bean Cebo Cela contained 20 percent more protein, 10 percent more iron and 10 percent more zinc than the yellow bean Canario, which took twice as long to prepare. Further testing showed that the iron bioavailability — the amount that a person's body would absorb — is also higher in the quicker-cooking beans in each of the four classes examined.
The authors acknowledge funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the National Cancer Institute.
###


Top of Page

HealthNewsDigest.com

Food and Nutrition
Latest Headlines


+ Food Cyber Attacks
+ Tips for Healthier Cookouts
+ Cutting Fatty Foods May Make You Want Them Even More
+ Food Shortages and COVID-19 Have Led to Unsafe Feeding Practices Among Formula-Reliant Families
+ Fourth Food for Life Market
+ Muskmelons are Full of Flavor, Nutrients
+ Banana Browning Could Help Tackle Food Waste
+ Robot Chef Learns to ‘Taste as You Go’
+ Findings Indicate That Fiber and Antioxidants Can Counteract the Physiological Effects of Saturated Fats and Other Junk Food
+ Humans Possess Surprising Nutritional Intelligence



Contact Us | Job Listings | Help | Site Map | About Us
Advertising Information | HND Press Release | Submit Information | Disclaimer

Site hosted by Sanchez Productions