Sports & Cooking

Everyone knows diets can be expensive. This is because healthy food is usually more expensive than unhealthy food. This doesn’t really make sense, but hey, we can’t do anything about it, can we? Well, we can in one way or another. Instead of buying the more expensive healthy food, we could look for alternatives. And 1 of those alternatives is legumes.

What are legumes?

This is what the Dole Nutrition Institute says about legumes ⁽¹⁾:

There are two types of legumes: mature and immature. Mature legumes are the dried seeds found inside pods that hang from the stems of certain plants. They are excellent sources of fiber (approximately 15 g/cup), rich in protein, and low in fat. Examples include dried peas, lentils and numerous types of dried beans. Green beans and peas, commonly referred to as vegetables, are actually immature legumes because they are harvested before maturing on the plant.

Previously I’ve mistaken legumes for being beans only, but that’s quite normal because I’m Dutch and I’m allowed to make that mistake. But as you can see legumes are not just beans, but a bit more than that. Let’s see what type of legumes there are.

• Adzuki beans: Also known as field peas and red oriental beans
• Anasazi beans: Also known as: Jacob’s cattle beans
• Black beans: Also known as Turtle beans, black Spanish beans and Venezuelan beans
• Black-eyed peas: Also known as Cowpeas, cherry beans, frijoles, China peas and Indian peas
• Chickpeas: Also known as Garbanzos, garbanzo beans and ceci beans
• Edamame: Also known as Green soybeans
• Fava beans: Also known as Broad beans, faba beans and horse beans
• Lentils: Also knows as lentils
• Lima beans: Also known as Butter beans
• Red kidney beans: Also called Mexican red beans
• Soy nuts: Also known as Soybean seeds

What are the benefits of eating legumes?

Legumes are such a healthy food. They contain quite some dietary and soluble fiber, which makes legumes an ideal source for fibers. Besides fibers, legumes are also a good source for protein, which makes it a nice substitute for meat. 2 more health benefits of legumes; they are low in fat and calories. Depending on the variety, a portion of 60-90 gram contains about 20-135 calories, 2-5 grams of fiber and 2-11 grams of protein.

Besides the fibers, protein, low fat and calories, legumes are a very good source for vitamins. Depending on the type of legume, it can contain the following vitamins ⁽²⁾:

• Folate
• Iron
• Magnesium
• Niacin
• Potassium
• Phosphorus
• Selenium
• Thiamine
• Vitamin B6
• Vitamin C
• Zinc

Those were some of the health benefits of legumes. Not only are legumes good for your health, they are also good for your wallet. Everyone knows it’s expensive to eat healthy these days and to reduce the cost of the healthy food you’re buying you could buy legumes as they are almost as cheap as water. A kilogram of legumes will cost you roughly $1. Including legumes in your daily or weekly shopping list will not only save you quite some money, but it will add some flavor to your food.

Recipes that include legumes

If you aren’t used to make a dish with legumes in it, it can be hard to get used to making a dish with legumes in it. To help you out, I found you some dishes which include legumes and are not difficult to prepare ⁽³⁾.

Lentils with Rice
Red beans and Rice
Field peas and Rice
Pinto beans and rice

As you can see, I’ve chosen recipes that include rice as well, because just like legumes, rice has many benefits, which I will discuss in another post.

I hope you know more about legumes after you’ve read this post than you knew before it. If so, let it know by commenting.

^{(1) Dole Nutrition Institute
(2) eVitamins
(3) About.com}

Technorati Tags: beans, calories, fiber, Food, Health, legumes

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