The Benevolent Bean

The quick answer: Legumes are underutilized value champions, offering protein, fiber, and a host of nutrients.  Enjoy them most days, in a soup, stew, casserole, or just sprinkled on a salad.

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The Healthy Change for this week advises eating legumes most days.  Before I introduce a book on the subject, let’s look at the twisted trail of the author Ancel Keys, a scientist who shaped the American view of heart disease.  Keys, more than any other person, sold the misguided mantra known as the Lipid Theory of Heart Disease, which posited that coronary heart disease (CHD) could be prevented by eating a low-fat diet, particularly a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol.  

This conclusion was based on his Seven Countries Study but it was later suspected he chose countries that supported his preconceived notion that dietary fat was the culprit.  In retrospect, choosing different countries would have given a different answer.   Due to Keys’ persistent efforts—he’s often portrayed as an academic bully—the focus of CHD research turned to cholesterol.  It helped that a cheap test for blood cholesterol had been developed—today most everyone knows their cholesterol number and many believe that lowering cholesterol is good for their health.  It’s a curiosity of medicine that the available test can shape the treatment of disease, and cholesterol-lowering drugs grew into an enormously profitable business, though more and more their use is being questioned.

Keys later retired to a charming fishing village on the Italian coast where he became a proponent of the Mediterranean diet which, due to the consumption of olive oil and fish, is low in saturated fats.  He even wrote a book on the diet that became a best seller.  Unfortunately, the cholesterol adventure wasted 50 years in the war against CHD.  Why did I tell this story of science gone awry? Because it reminds that science is often wrong, and we are wise to consider other venerable sources of knowledge, including tradition and scripture.  We’ll invoke all three in this post.

Scripture

Do you remember the food experiment of Daniel and his three friends in the Old Testament?  It may have been the first use of classic experimental design.  Taken captive to Babylon for training, Daniel and his friends were offered the rich food and drinks served at the king’s table.  Daniel demurred, proposing a 10-day experiment wherein he and his friends would eat the simple food known as pulse, and drink only water.  Pulse is a traditional dish of cooked edible seeds, usually leguminous, such as lentils, chickpeas, and, perhaps, foods grown from those seeds.  This plant-based diet was successful as Daniel and friends were later found to look better and test wiser than those eating the king’s fare. Daniel was wise beyond his years.

Wisdom sometimes fails.  Do you remember Esau selling his birthright to brother Jacob for a “mess of pottage”?  It’s another legume story—the dish was likely lentils, plus some bread.

Tradition

The good Lord, it seems, looks after the poor.  In much of the world, the humble legumes on which Daniel excelled are the affordable fare.  The prosperous can get their protein from animal sources, but by tradition the poor must eat the plants at hand—which are actually healthier.  In the post on protein, it was suggested we get 2/3 of our protein from plants, and just 1/3 from animal sources, which is roughly the reverse of how we currently eat.  Have you considered how this protein is also the source of plant life—legumes, whole grains, seeds and nuts?

In our home, the beautiful wife's most recent dinner was a pot of split peas cooked with a ham bone from the freezer.  (Recipe to follow.)  There is a traditional method for cooking legumes:  To the legumes you add three savory vegetables (onions, carrots, and celery) and then three spices (parsley, thyme, and bay leaf) plus salt, pepper, and perhaps a little garlic, then a few bones or a bit of meat (often from the humble pig).  Legumes vary by region, there are thousands of varieties, but most dishes follow this formula.  In Provence, cassoulet is a traditional dish of white beans with savory meats, vegetables and spices, topped with a breaded crust. 

People are different and for some, certain beans bring the bane of flatulence.  To give this post a high tone, we simply refer you to this blog for information.  There is an OTC pill that provides the enzyme to prevent this problem that some may distain as it has a lowbrow name: Beano.

Science

We return now to the errant scientist Ancel Keys and his book on legumes.  Titled The Benevolent Bean, it was first published in 1967 but is now out of print.  It’s a charming introduction to legumes and full of recipes.  Unlike most vegetables, beans are rich in protein.  Keys suggests we double the 7-8 pounds (dry weight) we consume each year, which aligns with this week’s Healthy Change and the USDA's 2010 Dietary Guidelines for Americans.  (The USDA sometimes has the right answer.)

Legumes are not complete proteins (meaning they don’t contain all 8 or 9 essential amino acids) but combining beans with another food group completes the protein profile.  For example, beans are eaten with corn tortillas in Latin American, or with pasta in Italy (pasta e fagioli), or as tofu and rice in Asia.  Besides nutrients and fiber, there’s another benefit to dried beans—shelf life; they’ll last years if properly stored. 

Redemption is found in unusual places.  It’s easy to dislike Ancel Keys because of his dominating role in the cholesterol debacle that badly delayed the battle against heart disease.  Yet I found the book The Benevolent Bean, quite charming.  What made the difference?  The great scientist wrote the book with his wife, Margaret, and the help of their daughters and that, I think, made all the difference.  It's another reminder that the women who cook should be involved in our nation's food decisions.

Budget Wisdom

The two keys to healthier eating also offer the best value.  The keys: 1) eat whole foods, and 2) do your own cooking.  In the last century, older women passing away took their knowledge of cookery with them—their children, seduced by modernity, weren’t interested in olden ways.  Taken in totality, this is a great loss to our planet.  If we find it difficult to cook nutritious meals of whole foods, the answer is to reclaim this lost wisdom.  Perhaps the book clubs, so popular with young mothers, can be expanded to cooking clubs. I saw a program last night where women got together to visit and assemble food dishes for the week. 

A reader referred me to a charming book The Pleasures of Cooking for One by Judith Jones.  Jones was the editor that recovered The Dairy of Anne Frank from the reject pile, and edited all the works of Julia Child and James Beard, and many others.  Though her style of cooking is a little fancy for most, I admired her reverence for the kitchen art, and her determination to carry on making memorable meals after the death of her husband.  In this regard, Judith Jones is a beckoning light upon a hill. 

Please comment

How can we recover the art and discipline of cooking nutritious meals that fit the family budget?

Comments

[Richard Harding]

You say Keys could have chosen 7 other countries. Which countries would have given different results?