Beans, Beans Are Good For the Heart, the More You Eat the LESS you Fart?

Every time I go home I discover something new in my parents’ fridge that looks amazing, but contains a forbidden ingredient, implying that I cannot eat the food. This weekend, I found a spicy eggplant hummus. I thought to myself, I make a mean hummus. I can easily re-create this store-bought hummus. And that’s just what I did!

Jen’s Roasted Eggplant, Roasted Red Pepper Spicy Hummus

2 cups chickpeas

3 tbsp tahini

¼ cup liquid (you choose - water, olive oil, liquid from cooking chickpeas if you soaked the chickpeas overnight and then cooked them)

Juice of 1 lemon

2 cloves of garlic, minced

Sea salt, to taste

Pepper, to taste

1 red pepper

1 small eggplant

1 jalapeno pepper

1.     Preheat oven to 350°F. Poke holes in eggplant. Cut red pepper in half. Place both eggplant and red pepper on a cookie sheet and bake for 30 minutes, or until roasted. Red peppers should have skin side up.

2.     Mix all ingredients in a food processor. Add more liquid until desired consistency is reached.

I like to use beans that I soak overnight and then cook. A large bag of beans is around $2, and supplies enough beans for many, many meals (or in this case many, many batches of hummus)! People seem hesitant to eat a lot of beans because beans are known to produce gas. This will not happen if you cook them properly!

To prepare dried beans into gas-free, easily digestible, edible beans, follow these instructions*:

1.     Measure the amount of beans (peas/legumes) required and sort through them and remove any misshapen, discoloured or damaged beans. Also remove any dirt balls, gravel, or other foreign objects and discard them.

2.     Soak 1 cup of dry beans in 3 to 4 cups of cool or room temperature water and let the beans soak 8 hours or more uncovered. (12 hours for chickpeas (garbanzos) and 24 hours for soybeans). Avoid using soybeans as they usually require a pressure cooker.

3.     Throw away the water the beans soaked in (very important!).

4.     Rinse the beans several times with fresh water.

5.     Put the beans in a large pot so that beans fill only ¼ of the pot and add fresh water until the beans are covered by 1 inch, or so of water.

6.     Bring the beans and water, uncovered, to a boil on high heat.

7.     When the beans are boiling, a white foam or froth will generally form on top. Scoop this off and discard it. This is part of what contributes to gas.

8.     Add extra water if needed so the beans are still at least 1 inch under water and turn the heat down to very low. Just low enough so the beans are barely bubbling. They cook best at this temperature.

9.     Add 1 tsp. ground fennel or preferably 1 tsp. savory to the beans. This also improves their digestibility. (Optional)

10. Cook for 1 ¼ hours or more until the beans are very tender and a bean can easily be mashed with the tongue on the roof of the mouth.

11. Always chew beans slowly, never eat them fast or when under excessive stress or tiredness.

12. Have some raw foods first in a meal before eating the beans to aid in their digestion.

Yes, this method of cooking beans takes time, but in my opinion, the benefits outweigh the costs. You can also cook more beans than you need and freeze the leftover beans. Then you can use them for a last-minute meal!

*Instructions are taken directly from the book Eating Alive by Dr. Jonn Matsen N.D., published in 1987