Superfood Beans

[Kay Kim]

NaturalNews.com | Independent News on Natural Health and the World

NaturalNews.com | Independent News on Natural Health and the World

www.naturalnews.com

An inexpensive and forgotten superfood: BEANS are key to reversing chronic disease
05/27/2025 // Lance D Johnson

Most people walk past them in the grocery store without a second thought. Beans are dismissed as peasant food while shoppers chase expensive "superfoods" and synthetic supplements. But what if the real secret to defying chronic disease, outliving modern health crises, and escaping Big Pharma’s profit-driven grip has been sitting in your pantry all along? Scientists studying the world’s longest-living populations have uncovered a truth the food industry doesn’t want you to know: beans are nature’s ultimate longevity medicine, an often overlooked superfood in preventing heart disease, diabetes, and cancer — without toxic side effects.

Key points:

• Blue Zones research confirms beans are the only food eaten daily by centenarians worldwide, from Okinawa to Sardinia.
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• Beans defy conventional food categories, acting as protein, complex carbs, and vegetables simultaneously — a nutritional unicorn.
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• Studies show bean consumption slashes heart disease risk, stabilizes blood sugar better than diabetes drugs, and reduces colon cancer rates.
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• The fiber in beans acts as a prebiotic, feeding gut bacteria that produce cancer-fighting short-chain fatty acids.
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• Despite costing pennies per serving, beans outperform expensive supplements in delivering complete nutrition.

The nutritional powerhouse, cheap, and in plain sight​

While corporations push processed "plant-based" alternatives laden with industrial seed oils and synthetic additives, real, whole legumes — black beans, lentils, chickpeas — deliver complete protein (when paired with rice or grains), more fiber than any plant except wheat, and provide critical minerals like iron and potassium, which 95% of Americans lack. Unlike factory-farmed meat or GMO soy isolates, beans thrive without chemical inputs, regenerating soil nitrogen naturally — an issue of sustainability that corporate agribusiness obscures.

Further, historical context reveals how food colonialism eroded bean consumption. Prior to industrialized diets, cultures from Mexico (with frijoles) to India (with dal) built civilizations on legume-based nutrition. Now, as chronic diseases skyrocket, researchers like Dr. Mopelola Adeyemo note: "Only about 5% of Americans get enough fiber daily. That deficiency is driving our epidemic of diabetes and heart disease." Beans are the simplest solution to basic health problems

Health benefits supported by science​

Heart disease prevention

• The soluble fiber in beans binds to cholesterol in the digestive tract, reducing LDL ("bad") cholesterol levels.
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• Studies show that consuming beans 3-4 times per week lowers heart disease risk by 22% (American Journal of Clinical Nutrition).

Blood sugar regulation

• Beans have a low glycemic index (GI), meaning they release glucose slowly, preventing blood sugar spikes.
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• Research indicates that diabetics who eat beans daily experience better glycemic control than those relying solely on medication.

Cancer protection

• Anthocyanins (found in dark-colored beans like black beans) have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects linked to reduced cancer risk.
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• The resistant starch in beans feeds beneficial gut bacteria, producing short-chain fatty acids (SCFAs) like butyrate, which may protect against colon cancer.

Gut health & longevity

• Beans act as prebiotics, nourishing gut microbiota essential for immune function and metabolic health.
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• Populations with high bean consumption (e.g., Okinawans, Sardinians) exhibit lower rates of chronic disease and longer lifespans.

Despite all these benefits, USDA dietary guidelines — influenced by meat and dairy lobbyists — still relegate beans to a minor role, while pushing processed grains and animal products linked to inflammation.

How to harness bean power​

Avoid canned beans lined with BPA and opt for organic, heirloom varieties like Anasazi beans or black turtle beans. Soak dried beans overnight with apple cider vinegar to neutralize anti-nutrients like phytates, then cook with cumin or ginger to enhance digestibility. For complete protein, pair with organic rice or quinoa — a combination indigenous cultures perfected millennia before modern nutritionists existed.

Additionally, here are a few preparation tips:

• Soaking (8-12 hours)
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• Fermenting (as in tempeh)
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• Cooking (boiling degrades most lectins)

While corporations peddle expensive "solutions" to problems they helped create, the world’s healthiest people quietly eat beans daily. Incorporating beans is inexpensive and their inclusion in diets could change the trajectory of chronic disease around the world.

Sources include:

NaturalHealth365.com
FrontierIn.org
UCLAHealth.org

 

[Nienna]

Hmmmm....from what has been researched on the forum about legumes and how detrimental they are to the body, I can't help but wonder why they are now being seen as a "superfood".

Here is a snippet from Gaby's post:

What are Plant Lectins?

Plant lectins are poisonous proteins. Ricin is a lectin made from castor beans, and a well-known poison that has been used by the KGB and terrorists in the USA that causes massive blood clotting. Lectins have a wide variety of different structures and are grouped together under the term "lectin" based on their effects on human blood. Lectins are carbohydrate-binding proteins that attach themselves to essential sugars in the human body. They are glycoproteins just like their protective counterparts. Essential sugars typically coat the surfaces of cells and help them to communicate. Lectins bind to the essential sugars and disrupt cellular communication. When they do this, they can cause agglutination – that is, the blood may clump together. It is thought that plant lectins exist as defence mechanisms. Many have lethal effects on various insects and cause stomach upsets in foraging animals – and humans.

Plant lectins act directly to cause disruption in the functions of essential sugars. Pathogenic microbes make lectins and use them to attach themselves to potential host cells. The human body contains its own innate lectins that perform friendly roles in the body, such as on vascular endothelial linings to allow blood to escape into the tissues, in the liver to capture microorganisms, and as part of the immune system where they bind to antigens to make them vulnerable to destruction by white blood cells.

Plant lectins are found largely in:
* Legumes (all beans including kidney, chickpea, soy, and peanuts)
* Grains and seeds (wheat, quinoa, rice, buckwheat, oats, rye, barley, millet and corn)
* Nightshades (potatoes, eggplants, tomatoes, peppers)

They can also be found in:

* Nuts
* The Allium family (onions, leeks, garlic, shallots)
* Some vegetables (cabbage, herbs, celery, cucumber), peas, squashes, and fruits
* Dairy (being dependent on the lectin content of the diet of the animal)

 

[nicklebleu]

Maybe beans are ‘superfoods’ along the lines of Sally Norton’s new book “Toxic Superfoods”.
Yes, I’m a bit weary, too, like @Nienna.

Problem really is that you will find a study to prove anything you want, really. For me the best example is coffee. I did a search about coffee and health benefits/ dangers a few years back. I found (as far as I could tell) well-designed studies that went from “No coffee is best, and any coffee is detrimental”, to “One coffee is OK, but more is detrimental”, all the way to “The more coffee you drink a day, the better”.

The pharmaceutical industry has this down to a fine art - they have a product they want to market and they know it is dodgy. They do the same study in different countries (same protocol) and then publish the one that is positive, while shelving all those that are not.

As the Cs pointed out, it all depends on your selection of people you do the study with - no group has no selection bias, because you have to apply SOME method to even find them. So invariably this introduces a bias, and they are not a reflexion of the real population.

And then we have the problem that most of those issues are hugely variable on an individual level, so any result describing a group is really pretty meaningless in terms of individual care.

 

[Wandering Star]

Cooking (boiling degrades most lectins)

Well, I've read about some people who took a small dose of poison to avoid being poisoned.

 

[Wandering Star]

By the way, I just opened a session to continue reading where I was reading and the first thing I see is this:

(A) Now, apparently, everything is going well, and for a while, I think I will have more time to start some real research, and I would like some advice because we don't know how long I will have this time. What would be the first priority for me to work on for now?

A: The journal, to start with. One's objectives should be outlined. The scientist usually begins with this for "fine tuning." We see more opportunities coming though. We led you to the garden, and you planted the beanstalk. Now watch it grow, Jack!

Q: (L) That doesn't mean there is going to be a giant going around saying "fee, fie, foe, fum," does it?

A: The giant is in the meaning.

Q: You mean we gotta kill a giant?

A: No.

Q: (A) I also wanted to ask if I should be more active and ask more questions in future sessions, or to ask less questions and work more on my own?

A: Questions open the doors, Arkadiusz.

Q: (L) I want to go back to this beanstalk!

A: Well, what of the fable?

Q: (L) Well, Jack got these beans and planted them and they grew. He climbed the beanstalk and figured out how to transform or kill the giant, and got the treasure, and ran away and chopped the beanstalk down so the giant couldn't get him. (F) I remember that he used the beanstalk to get to the same level with the giant. (L) Well, which does it mean? Does he use the beanstalk to rise to the level of the giant, get the treasure and live there, or does he run away with the treasure and chop down the beanstalk?

A: Take your pick.

Q: (L) Well, the essence of the story is that Jack was successful. He planted these magic beans and they REALLY grew, like OVERNIGHT! He woke up the next day and the beanstalk reached all the way to the clouds - that is how fast it was. I guess that what you have been doing in this job is planting magic beans that are gonna take off and grow like crazy and be a ladder you can climb to some giant success! If I remember correctly, there was a harp involved.

 

[Persej]

The Three Sisters (Spanish: tres hermanas) are the three main agricultural crops of various indigenous people of Central and North America: squash, maize ("corn"), and climbing beans (typically tepary beans or common beans). In a technique known as companion planting, the maize and beans are often planted together in mounds formed by hilling soil around the base of the plants each year; squash is typically planted between the mounds. The cornstalk serves as a trellis for climbing beans, the beans fix nitrogen in their root nodules and stabilize the maize in high winds, and the wide leaves of the squash plant shade the ground, keeping the soil moist and helping prevent the establishment of weeds.

The three crops benefit by being grown together. The cornstalk serves as a trellis for the beans to climb; the beans fix nitrogen in the soil and their twining vines stabilize the maize in high winds; and the wide leaves of the squash plant shade the ground, keeping the soil moist and helping prevent the establishment of weeds. The prickly hairs of some squash varieties deter pests, such as deer and raccoons.

Three Sisters (agriculture) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

This is exactly how people used to grow these three plants in my father's village. Balkan is really a copy of Central American agriculture.

They don't do this nowadays because this requires a lot of manual work. But it is a smart combination.

Both corn and beans should be soaked in alkaline water. This knowledge is something which appears that never made it to Balkan. Or perhaps it was just forgotten.

Beans as part of military strategy

The Serbian army has been eating beans since 1805, and back then they were mostly a lean food; 600 grams of beans replaced the same amount of mutton or beef for the army.

Today, military beans are prepared in various ways: with bacon, steak or sausage.

Pasulj kao deo vojne strategije

Jedan od simbola srpske vojske je i vojnički pasulj. Ovo jelo u vojsci služi se više od dvesta godina i isto toliko ne otkriva se njegov recept. U čemu je tajna vojničkog pasulja, znaju kuvari na Vojnoj akademiji.

www.rts.rs

I suppose that beans are "superfood" because they can replace meat, which can be scarce in the time of war, and they can be easily stored without electricity. Which means that they can become super again, if we get some global catastrophe.

 

[meadow_wind]

@Nienna Lectins can be almost all destroyed by following simple steps. I stay away from most beans except lentils, Pinto, and black beans. I soak them for 2 to 4 days and discard the water 2-3 times a day. I usually wait until the lentils germinate.

And here is according to Grok:

Key Points on Lectin Reduction via Soaking

Lectins are proteins in legumes that can bind carbohydrates and cause digestive issues if consumed in large amounts in their active form. Proper preparation (soaking, cooking) significantly reduces their activity.

Soaking alone reduces lectins to varying degrees, but combining soaking with boiling is far more effective, often neutralizing 94–100% of lectins, depending on the legume and conditions.

The reduction depends on:

• Bean variety: Some beans, like red kidney beans, have higher lectin levels (e.g., phytohaemagglutinin) and require more intensive processing.
• Soaking time: Longer soaking (12–24 hours) typically removes more lectins than shorter periods (4–8 hours).
• Water conditions: Warm water, acidic mediums (e.g., lemon juice, vinegar), or alkaline solutions (e.g., sodium bicarbonate) can enhance lectin removal.
• Subsequent cooking: Boiling after soaking is critical to fully inactivate lectins, as soaking alone is insufficient for complete neutralization.

A 2021 study published in PMC examined lectin activity in various legumes and found that soaking for 12 hours followed by boiling for 10–30 minutes resulted in complete lectin inactivation for most legumes tested, except chickpeas, which retained some activity. The study emphasized that soaking alone reduced lectin levels, but boiling was necessary for full inactivation.

Lectin Activity in Commonly Consumed Plant-Based Foods: Calling for Method Harmonization and Risk Assessment - PMC

Lectins are ubiquitous proteins characterized through their ability to bind different types of carbohydrates. It is well known that active lectins from insufficiently prepared legumes can cause adverse human health effects. The objective of this ...

pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Bean Variety Differences:

• Red kidney beans: These contain high levels of phytohaemagglutinin, a particularly potent lectin. Studies show that soaking for 5–12 hours reduces lectin content, but boiling for at least 10 minutes at 100°C is required to fully inactivate lectins. Slow cooking without prior boiling is insufficient, as temperatures below 100°C may not destroy all lectins.
  
  
• Soybeans: Soaking reduces lectins minimally (1–5%), but boiling at 95–100°C for an hour can destroy 94–100% of lectins, depending on the method (wet heat is more effective than dry heat).
  
  
• Lentils: These have lower lectin levels than kidney beans and may require less soaking (4–8 hours) to achieve significant reductions. Some sources suggest lentils don’t need soaking due to their softer texture, but soaking still reduces lectins and other anti-nutrients like oligosaccharides.
  
  
• Chickpeas: Soaking for 12–24 hours reduces lectins, but some residual activity may remain even after boiling, requiring longer cooking times or pressure cooking for complete inactivation.

Effect of Additives:

Soaking in 0.5% sodium bicarbonate or acidic mediums (e.g., lemon juice, apple cider vinegar) enhances lectin reduction by breaking down lectin proteins or facilitating their leaching into the soaking water. A 1985 study noted that sodium bicarbonate reduced compounds causing digestive issues, including lectins, in beans.

Changing the soaking water periodically (e.g., every 6–8 hours) during long soaks (24–48 hours) further reduces lectins by preventing reabsorption

Cooking: Always boil soaked beans for at least 10–30 minutes (longer for kidney beans) or use a pressure cooker to ensure lectins are fully inactivated. Avoid slow cookers for raw or under-soaked beans.


Lectin Reduction During Germination

Soaking lentils for 3 to 5 days until germination significantly reduces lectins and other anti-nutritional factors, while also enhancing their nutritional profile in several ways. Germination (sprouting) is a more intensive process than simple soaking, as it activates enzymatic processes that break down compounds like lectins, phytates, and oligosaccharides, potentially making lentils healthier and easier to digest.

Lectin Breakdown
Germination is highly effective at reducing lectin content, often more so than soaking alone. Studies indicate that sprouting lentils for 3–5 days can reduce lectins by 50–95%, depending on the lentil variety, germination time, and conditions (e.g., temperature, light exposure). For example:

A 2018 study published in Food Chemistry found that germinating lentils for 3–4 days at 20–25°C reduced lectin activity (measured via hemagglutination assays) by up to 85% compared to raw lentils. Longer germination (up to 5 days) further decreased lectins, approaching near-complete inactivation in some cases.

A 2021 study in PMC noted that germination for 72–96 hours (3–4 days) significantly lowered lectin levels in lentils, with reductions exceeding those from 12–24-hour soaking (which typically removes 1–5% of lectins).

Mechanism
During germination, lentils produce enzymes that break down storage proteins, including lectins, to support sprout growth. This process makes lectins less biologically active, reducing their potential to cause digestive issues.


Nutritional and Health Benefits of Sprouting Lentils
Germination not only reduces anti-nutritional factors but also enhances the nutritional value of lentils, making them potentially healthier. Key changes include:

Improved Nutrient Bioavailability

• Phytate Reduction: Phytates bind minerals like iron, zinc, and calcium, reducing their absorption. Germination reduces phytate content by 30–70% after 3–5 days, as enzymes like phytase break them down. This increases mineral bioavailability, making sprouted lentils a better source of these nutrients.
• Protein Digestibility: Sprouting increases protein digestibility by breaking down complex proteins into simpler peptides and amino acids. A 2019 study in Journal of Food Science and Technology reported a 10–20% increase in protein digestibility after 3–4 days of lentil germination.
• Vitamins and Antioxidants: Germination boosts levels of vitamins (e.g., vitamin C, folate, and B vitamins) and antioxidants (e.g., phenolic compounds). For example, vitamin C content in lentils can increase by 100–300% after 3–5 days of sprouting, according to a 2015 study in Plant Foods for Human Nutrition. Antioxidants also rise, potentially reducing inflammation and oxidative stress.

Reduced Anti-Nutritional Factors
Beyond lectins, germination reduces other anti-nutrients like tannins and oligosaccharides (e.g., raffinose, stachyose), which cause bloating and gas. A 2020 study found that 3–4 days of germination reduced oligosaccharides in lentils by 40–60%, improving digestibility.

This makes sprouted lentils gentler on the digestive system, especially for those with sensitive stomachs or conditions like IBS.

Lower Glycemic Index
Sprouting reduces starch content and increases simple sugars, which can lower the glycemic index of lentils. A 2017 study in Food Research International noted that sprouted lentils have a lower glycemic load than unsprouted ones, potentially benefiting blood sugar control.

Enzyme Activation
Germination activates enzymes like amylases and proteases, which break down starches and proteins, making nutrients more accessible. This can enhance the body’s ability to utilize the energy and nutrients in lentils.