Healthy tips for adding beans to your diet

If you're looking for variety in the kitchen, try beans. With so many types available, beans are popular and healthy vegetables that taste great! Check out these nutritional tips and some of the health benefits beans can offer.

• Green beans (which can also be yellow or purple) are harvested at an immature stage. Both the tender pods and small, soft seeds are eaten. These are sometimes called wax beans.
• In shelled varieties, only the seeds are eaten.
• Some, such as lima beans, are harvested while they are still tender; others are left to mature. (Mature, dried beans are called legumes, a group of foods that also include dried peas and lentils.)
• Most pod beans — snap beans, Italian green beans, long Chinese beans, purple and yellow wax beans as well as green beans — can be eaten raw. More commonly, they are steamed or boiled.
• Shelled beans should always be cooked; they can then be served hot or cold.

• Lima and fava beans are good sources of protein, providing about seven grams (1 1/2 teaspoon) per 125 millilitre (1/2 cup) serving. The same-size serving of baby or green lima beans contains two millligrans of iron, more than twice as much as in favas and four times the amount in green snap beans.
• All these varieties hold folate and vitamins A and C.
• Shelled beans have more thiamine, vitamin B6, potassium and magnesium; the soluble fibre in shelled beans may lower cholesterol, but the presence of carbohydrates such as raffinose may also cause flatulence.
• Beans of all types have a significant amount of fibre.

Take warning: some Mediterranean people lack an enzyme needed to protect red blood cells from damage by vicine, a toxic substance in fava beans that causes a type of anemia.

• Also, those taking monoamine oxidase (MAO) inhibitors to treat depression should avoid fava beans; the combination can raise blood pressure.

Beans are widely available and easy to prepare. Keep these nutritional tips in mind and add beans to your diet for healthy results.