Bean

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Green beans

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of Fabaceae (formerly Leguminosae) used for food or feed. The various species of bean bean plants include some of the very first plants cultivated by man in both the Old and the New Worlds. They have been and continue to be an important part of the human food supply.

Name

Bean originally meant the seed of the broad bean, but was later broadened to include members of the genus Phaseolus such as the common bean or haricot and the runner bean and the related genus Vigna. The term is now applied in a general way to many other related plants such as soybeans, peas, lentils, vetches and lupines. Bean can be used as a near synonym of pulse, an edible legume, though the term "pulses" is usually reserved for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. Pulses usually excludes crops mainly used for oil extraction (like soybean and peanut) or those used exclusively for sowing purposes (clover and alfalfa). Leguminous crops harvested green for food like snap beans, green peas etc. are classified as vegetable crops.

In English usage beans sometimes also refer to seeds or other organs of non leguminosae, for example coffee beans, castor beans and cocoa beans (which resemble bean seeds), and vanilla beans (which resemble the pods).

Broad beans

Vicia faba, the broad bean, fava bean, faba bean, horse bean, field bean or tic bean is a species of bean (Fabaceae) native to north Africa and southwest Asia, and extensively cultivated elsewhere. Although usually classified in the same genus Vicia as the vetches, some botanists treat it in a separate monotypic genus as Faba sativa Moench.

broad beans in the pod

It is a rigid, erect plant 0.5-1.7 m tall, with stout stems with a square cross-section. The leaves are 10-25 cm long, pinnate with 2-7 leaflets, and of a distinct glaucous grey-green colour; unlike most other vetches, the leaves do not have tendrils for climbing over other vegetation. The flowers are 1-2.5 cm long, with five petals, the standard petal white, the wing petals white with a black spot, and the keel petals white. The fruit is a broad leathery pod, green maturing blackish-brown, with a densely downy surface; in the wild species, the pods are 5-10 cm long and 1 cm diameter, but many modern cultivars developed for food use have pods 15-25 cm long and 2-3 cm thick. Each pod contains 3-8 seeds; round to oval and 5-10 mm diameter in the wild plant, usually flattened and up to 20-25 mm long, 15 mm broad and 5-10 mm thick in food cultivars. Vicia faba has a diploid (2n) chromosome number of 12, meaning that each cell in the plant has 12 chromosomes (6 homologous pairs). Five pairs are acrocentric chromosomes and 1 pair is metacentric.

Cultivation and uses

Broad beans have a long tradition of cultivation in Old World agriculture, being among the most ancient plants in cultivation and also among the easiest to grow. It is believed that along with lentils, peas, and chickpeas, they became part of the eastern Mediterranean diet in around 6000 B.C.E. or earlier. They are still often grown as a cover crop to prevent erosion because they can over-winter and because as a legume, they fix nitrogen in the soil.

File:Tuinboon voor zaad.jpg
Mature field bean pods

In much of the world, the name broad bean is used for the large-seeded cultivars grown for human food, while horse bean and field bean refer to cultivars with smaller, harder seeds (more like the wild species) used for animal feed, though their stronger flavour is preferred in some human food recipes, such as falafel. The term fava bean (from the Italian name fava) is commonly used in the United States (especially for beans grown for human consumption), but is also seen elsewhere, especially in Mediterranean recipes (this language shift can also be seen in the common use of the term "arugula" in the US for what in the UK is called "rocket").

Culinary uses

Broad beans are eaten while still young and tender, enabling harvesting to begin as early as the middle of spring for plants started under glass or over-wintered in a protected location, but even the maincrop sown in early spring will be ready from mid to late summer. Horse beans, left to mature fully, are usually harvested in the late autumn.

The beans can be fried, causing the skin to split open, and then salted to produce a crunchy snack. These are popular in China, and also in Thailand where their name means "open-mouth nut".

Health issues

Broad beans are rich in tyramine, and thus should be avoided by those taking monoamine oxidase inhibitors. They contain vicine and convicine, which can induce hemolytic anemia in patients with the hereditary condition glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency (G6PD). This condition, which is quite common in certain ethnic groups, is called "favism" after the fava bean.

Broad beans are rich in L-dopa, a substance used medically in the treatment of Parkinson's disease. L-dopa is also a natriuretic agent, which might help in controlling hypertension.[1]


Chick peas

Soybeans

New World beans

Types of beans

    • 'Parkbeans'or 'El Buenos' (This variety is found only in small areas of North Yorkshire)
    • Vicia
    • Faba or broad bean
    • Vigna
    • Aconitifolia or Moth bean
    • Angularis or azuki bean
    • mungo or Urd bean
    • radiata or mung bean
    • umbellatta or rice bean
    • unguiculata or cowpea (includes the black-eyed pea, yardlong bean and others)
    • several others
    • Cicer
    • arietinum or chickpea
    • Pisum
    • sativum or pea
    • Lathyrus
    • Lathyrus sativus (Indian pea)
    • Lathyrus tuberosus (Tuberous pea)
    • Lens
    • culinaris or lentil
    • Lablab
    • purpureus or hyacinth bean
    • Phaseolus
    • acutifolius or tepary bean
    • coccineus or runner bean
    • lunatus or lima bean
    • vulgaris or common bean (includes the pinto bean, kidney bean and many others)
    • Glycine
    • max or soybean
    • Psophocarpus
    • tetragonolobus or winged bean
    • Cajanus
    • cajan or pigeon pea
    • Stizolobium
    • spp or velvet bean
    • Cyamopsis
    • tetragonoloba or guar
    • Canavalia
    • ensiformis or jack bean
    • Macrotyloma
    • M. uniflorum or horse gram
    • 'Lupinus or Lupin
    • L. mutabilis or tarwi
    • Erythrina or Coral bean

Cultural aspects

The following traditional uses of beans refer to the broad bean.

  • In some folk legends, such as in Estonia and the common Jack and the Beanstalk story, magical beans grow tall enough to bring the hero to the clouds. The Grimm Brothers collected a story in which a bean splits its sides laughing at the failure of others.
  • Dreaming of a bean is sometimes said to be a sign of impending conflict, though others said they caused bad dreams. [citation needed]
  • Pliny the Elder claimed that beans act as a laxative. He may have been referring to the seeds of the castor oil plant, which contain oils used as laxatives in ancient India.
  • European folklore claims that planting beans on Good Friday or during the night-time is good luck.
  • "Beans Beans the Magical Fruit..." is a children's song about the flatulence often experienced after eating broad beans. The song is noteworthy for correctly identifying the bean as a fruit, not a vegetable.

Toxins

Some raw beans, for example kidney beans, contain harmful toxins (lectins) which need to be removed, usually by various methods of soaking and cooking. The soaking water from kidney beans should be discarded before boiling, and some authorities recommend changing the water during cooking as well. Cooking beans in a crock pot, because of the lower temperatures used, does not destroy toxins even though the beans do not smell or taste 'bad'.

Other Meanings

  • To bean someone can mean to hit them in the head with a thrown object.
  • In Software Engineering, Java Beans are reusable software components.

Flatulence

Many edible beans, including broad beans and soybeans, contain oligosaccharides, a type of sugar molecule also found in cabbage. An anti-oligosaccharide enzyme is necessary to properly digest these sugar molecules. As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria in the large intestine. This digestion process produces flatulence-causing gasses as a byproduct.

Some species of mold produce alpha-galactosidase, an anti-oligosaccharide enzyme, which humans can take to facilitate digestion of oligosaccharides in the small intestine. This enzyme, currently sold in the U.S. under the brand-name Beano, can be added to food or consumed separately.

References
ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

See also

  • Pulses
  • List of edible seeds
  • Baked beans


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  1. Vered Y, Grosskopf I, Palevitch D, Harsat A, Charach G, Weintraub MS, Graff E. The influence of Vicia faba (broad bean) seedlings on urinary sodium excretion. Planta Med 1997;63:237-40. PMID 9225606.