Soaking is not enough: another basic cooking question

[cjsmith]

I've heard of two ways to break down the oligosaccharides (*toot*!) in beans and legumes.

- Soak overnight, then drain and rinse thoroughly
- Boil for a while, then drain and rinse thoroughly

The recipe I made yesterday actually called for BOTH of these. I did them both. They were not enough.

I am willing to believe I simply don't know what I'm doing, but I also know that there are certain explanations I am no longer going to accept because I've tried them and they don't work. Never in my forty years have I succeeded in eating beans or legumes without trouble. Anyone who says that I'll "get used to" (as in: no longer produce gas after eating) certain things is just plain wrong. Anyone who says that soaking or pre-boiling is sufficient is also just plain wrong.

I realize that I may be somewhat unusual. I have a coworker who can't eat certain kinds of beans at all, as her inability to digest certain compounds will send her to the hospital. I might simply be someone who will always have trouble with this stuff.

What else do I need to do? Is there a big step I'm missing here? Or should I, as I have on several previous occasions been close to deciding, simply give up on this kind of food?

Comments

[inflectionpoint.livejournal.com]

I will try to research it more, but two things come to mind immediately.

First, BEANO. If beans are of trouble to you in any way, BEANO. And use it every time.

Second, I don't know how many beans you are eating at one time. If it's troubling at all, start with tiny tiny tiny portions and ramp up later. Learn from what I did - I once ate an entire one pound package of soymeat in one day. The rest of the night was... indescribable. I wanted an air mask for myself.

You may want to go to tiny tiny portions and try One Bean at A Time, to see what the deal is. I found that challenging my body with a shitton of them at once was Not Good.

I can try and research this more, because I'm curious myself. The answers may be complicated tho, I have a feeling that it depends on when where and how each bean was grown and harvested and processed. We may end up with a Bean Protocol that is way overengineered beyond what is necessary in most cases for you just to make sure you don't have bean problems ever again. Hell, I'd work with that myself!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Using Beano seems to make a small dent in the problem. It's as if I also need some enzyme Beano doesn't have.

I had a bowl of my bean soup. I'd say the bowl was half liquid, a quarter beans, and a quarter veggies. Northern beans, this time; other times it's been lentils. Interestingly enough, I don't seem to have this problem with some soy-based things, such as tofu; that may or may not give some clue to what is going on.

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

Soaking does not get rid of all of those compounds...it gets rid of most.

The getting used to comment works if you are vegetarian and eat beans and legumes, EVERY DAY...for a period of time. And even then, it doesn't work for everyone.

I guess the question is...can you live (and Rob too) with the side effects? If you enjoy beans (like I do), don't worry about it and eat away!

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've been vegetarian, the longest period being three years. Didn't work.

Sometimes I can live with the side effects, but other times I have a job with coworkers. :)

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

Save it for the weekends?

Some co-workers deserve that kind of present you know? =)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

HAHAHA some definitely do!

[dpolicar]

Well, I cook lots of beans (in fact, there's bean stew in my fridge right now) and both approaches work for me and there's no real trick to it. So it doesn't sound to me like you're missing anything. If it isn't working for you, the idea that your biology is just different in this regard is certainly worth considering.

I know there are commercial products intended to detootify beans, though I've never used them myself. They might be worth experimenting with.

Also, not all beans are created equal... what kinds have you experimented with? (I don't really know which are supposed to be better or worse. I vaguely remember that you aren't supposed to presoak white beans, though I don't know why not.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

both approaches work for me and there's no real trick to it.

That's what I was afraid of. Maybe I'm just lucky. :)

I've eaten just about every kind of bean there is. What beans have I cooked myself, using these approaches? Most recently, Northern white beans (the recipe called for it so I did it); also, lentils and two colors of split peas (just the pre-boil on those).

[mighty-sam.livejournal.com]

Um... how exactly is excessive flatulence a problem? I have a grand old time cropdusting one of my cow orkers when I am similarly afflicted.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

This stuff is weapons grade!

[aelfie.livejournal.com]

See? He agrees with me!

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

It's a myth. You can't actually get rid of all the oligosaccharides by either soaking, or boiling. What you really need is an enzyme that breaks them down (something like Beano). I believe Alton Brown talks about this in one of his books, or an episode of his show.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Does Beano work for anybody? When I try it, there's some effect, but not a heck of a lot.

[zipperbear]

I carry around a supply of Beano, in case I start eating something that contains onions. Beano helps a little for that.

I've never liked the taste of beans, so I just don't eat them. I'll eat green beans, and peas that are green/fresh, but I just avoid dry beans, lentils, and split peas.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Onions do it to ya? Interesting. My soup also had onions in it.

Now that you mention green beans, I realize that I think those don't give me this problem. That's also a clue.

Sadly, I like the taste of beans, plus they keep well and they're cheap. But I'm not going to become completely socially unacceptable just to have cheap eats. :)

[theoctothorpe.livejournal.com]

well, it contains the enzyme that supposedly breaks down the oligosaccharides. I know it works for Tom/notdefined. Also, it's a compliance issue. Many people don't take it at the appropriate time/the appropriate way, so efficacy is reduced.

[just-cyd.livejournal.com]

i remember mom using a tsp or so of baking soda during the soaking and/or cooking, claiming that it "helped," no doubt picking this trick up from dad's aunts if not from her own family.

i also seem to recall that the soaking/pre-boil was as much to break down the oligosaccharides as it was to reduce cooking time. i have cooked beans w/o soaking, but it takes a good long time.

does Beano help you?

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I've never tried baking soda. I wonder what that would do!

Beano helps some.

[kent4str.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I've got friends who swear a little dash of vinegar in the finished product eliminates over 80% of the by-product. Wonder how it'd go over with baking soda-soaked beans...

[allanh.livejournal.com]

Harold McGee ("On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen")suggests a commonly used method is "to boil them briefly in excess water, let them stand for an hour, then discard the soaking water and start the cooking with fresh water. This does leach out most of the water-soluble oligosaccharides - but it also leaches out significant quantities of water-soluble vitamins, minerals, simple sugars, and seed-coat pigments: that is, nutrients, flavor, color, and antioxidants. That's a high price to pay. An alternative is simple prolonged cooking, which helps by eventually breaking down much of the oligosaccharides and cell-wall cements into digestible single sugars."

So you might try a slow-cooker version of the receipe - or at least slow-cooking the beans.

And if it fails, there's always Beano. :)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I boiled them and pitched the water, AND this was in the slow cooker. :)

I wish Beano were more helpful. It does have an effect, but not much.

[kimatha.livejournal.com]

I, personally, don't think it's possible to get rid of all of the farts in beans.

That said, I went through a phase where all bodily functions embarrassed me so much that I developed iron control over gaseous emissions, so that I can hie myself to a restroom before the situation gets too dire.

I second the Beano suggestion.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Ah, interesting. So maybe this is normal.

I can often "hold it" too, although long airplane flights get quite painful.

Does Beano really help anybody? I can tell it does SOMEthing, but it's like it's dealing with one small part of the problem.

[leback.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I never even heard the claim that soaking/boiling could make beans unproblematic. Less so, sure, but it's *definitely* only a partial fix.

Some people claim that the herb epazote (which I buy through Penzey's) will counter the effects of beans, but I haven't really noticed whether it seems to make a difference when I use it.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

*definitely* only a partial fix.

OK, so maybe I'm not missing anything big here. It sounds like the next angle for me to try is additives, either stuff in the recipe or enzymes taken with food, to counteract the beans. Epazote, eh? I'll give it a shot. Thanks.

Hing

[jb98.livejournal.com]

Hing is recommended in Ayurveda and you can get it at Indian food stores. It smells horrible but doesn't taste too bad. From the wikipedia site (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida):

This spice is used as a digestive aid, in food as a condiment and in pickles. Its odor is so strong that it must be stored in airtight containers; otherwise the aroma, which is nauseating in quantities, will contaminate other spices stored nearby. However, its odour and flavor become much milder and more pleasant upon heating in oil or ghee, acquiring a taste and aroma reminiscent of sautéed onion and garlic. In India, it is used especially by the merchant caste of the Hindus and by adherents of Jainism, who do not eat onions and garlic. It is used in most vegetarian and lentil dishes to both add flavor and aroma and reduce flatulence.

Re: Hing

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Interesting! So if I'm willing to live with (or bottle up) the smell, I won't have to live with (or bottle up) another smell. ;-) Amusement aside, that could definitely make the problem easier.

[abqdan.livejournal.com]

Well, according to this article: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/Intestinal-gas/DG00048 gas is also caused by a variety of indigestable sugars in lots of different foods - see the list in the middle of the page. and yes, onions are there (what you learn through reading LJ!)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh my. I need Beano and Milko and Oniono and... :-)

I've wondered whether I might be lactose-deficient, because I've been plagued after having cereal with milk. But I don't have any trouble with cheese at all. Maybe, for me, that one is dependent on the amount.

[ericainohio.livejournal.com]

Also might depend on the type of cheese in question (as I learned from my recent midwife visit). If you're sensitive to lactose, aged/hard cheeses have less of that than soft cheeses. Eating full-fat versions of dairy products reduces the lactose content, so it's either ingest the sugar or ingest the fat. Take your pick. Heh.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Good point. I'm usually eating more-aged cheeses like Swiss. The softest I ever usually go is brie, and that's so full of fat it might as well be shortening. ;-) (ok, I'm exaggerating!)

[layer.livejournal.com]

there's a seaweed called kombu which when cooked in with the beans helps with the problem. it usually disolves pretty completely and doesn't leave a taste. what doesn't disolve can be spooned out before you eat it.

not sure if it will help enough, but it might be worth a shot.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Might be worth a shot! Does it keep well? :)

[layer.livejournal.com]

yep. it's sold dried, so as long as you can keep it dry it lasts practically forever.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombu

[layer.livejournal.com]

it also helps if you skim off the foam as they cook so you're not just stirring that gas back into the soup.

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

A bit off topic but since you're cookin' bean soup (mmm bean soup) and said you've been veggie before...

What can you flavour good old fashioned bean soup with that *isn't* meat? My family is from Alabama, so we're navy bean and ham bone or bacon types (mostly ham). However, dating a veggie boy makes that non-workable if I want to be able to share my bounty. Any suggestions? (one of my favourite dinners this time of year is navy bean soup and cornbread. Yummy!! However, due to lazyness I've been defaulting to Bean with Bacon soup. Once I get myself a crock pot, however, that will change!)

And as others have said... AFAIK, soaking them/pre-cooking them seems to be more for reducing overall cooking time than anything else. My mom always presoaks her navy beans, but she's never said anything to me about it altering any, er, chemical processes... just making them softer and easier to cook.

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Man, I wish I knew! I can look in a cookbook or two when I get home, and see what they suggest. When I was veg, I was more of a lentil girl, with ginger and turmeric and all that good curry-ish stuff.

Crock pots rule. I love being able to dump a bunch of stuff in there and not worry about it until I get home. I doubt I'd have the patience for soup otherwise. :)

Re: researchers

[kethryvis.livejournal.com]

I HEART ME A CROCK POT!! I am dying to try my hand at soup making but I agree.. NO patience. I'd rather throw it all in the crock pot, turn it on, come home and have soup :) Plus, it makes the house smell amazing.

I saw a crock pot several years ago that had a divider in it, so it was a 32oz crock pot *or* two 16 oz ones. Talk about awesome! Now all I've seen is ones that are divided so you have two sides, but you can't join them together to be one big crock pot. I will not rest until I find one. Durnit!

Re: researchers

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great feature! Maybe if you find the permanently-divided ones, they'd at least have an alternate crock without the divider.

Me, I'm okay with just my $20 Rival 4-quart, but boy was I glad this weekend that (because of a long-ago party) I happened to have TWO of them. A pound of white beans plus all the veggies and water and stuff... suddenly it wasn't a 4-quart recipe! Whoops!

researchers

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

I have a lot of vague ideas about all this, but hadn't realized just how vague my ideas are -- so I think all of this needs a lot of research -- I just hadn't realized it!

I didn't answer the poll but I think that soaking beans will:
1. make em cook faster
2. increase nutritional content (although not as much as if you sprout them -- of which this is the first bit....) [picky footnote: "increase" is not totally accurate for ALL nutrients -- you get less protein but way more of many vitamins -- "more nutrients" is a reasonable way to explain in a general way.] (The enzyme inhibitors that keep beans from growing when dry are released [?] by water, and then the enzymes kick in, resulting in the [slow] transformation of the bean into a sprout, and baby plant.....]
3. decrease gas-causing potential.

Please note that all 3 of these come to mind but I don't really know why recipes recommend it. I'm clear that soaking increases nutrients, but I don't know if that has any relation to why it is recommended. I'm pretty sure that #1 is true (soaked beans cook faster), but not really clear if 3 is -- and not sure if cookbooks would recommend it for the cooking faster or the gas reduction or both.....

On the gas reduction issue, I think cooking the beans WELL is also important. I would guess that the type of bean would also matter. And tofu is not just made of soybeans, it is also very processed, thus (maybe?) pretty different than your reaction to cooked soybeans. Although, heck, try eating cooked soybeans to see if they are any better (I think they take longer to cook than any other bean.....)

Finally, I wonder if it is worth experimenting with soaking the beans for (various) longer amounts of time..... maybe 24 hours, for instance.

Somewhat unrelated note: sprouted lentils are really wonderful. I don't cook them (which is why this seems unrelated) -- probably my favorite sprout? Also especially easy to grow.

Oops, one more thing: I've also read a bean cooking method where you put them in water, bring the water to a boil and then turn off heat (as soon as the water boils) and then leave the beans overnight in the heated water. I think this is also to get them semi-pre-cooked so that the remaining cooking needed is faster. (This also works with steel cut oatmeal)

Re: researchers

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you mention increasing the nutritional content. Pre-boiling beans (and then rinsing) will also decrease nutritional content, so in that sense, soaking is nutritionally better.

I wonder if cooking the beans twice as long would help. Seriously, if heat breaks down the polysaccharide, then more heat should break down more of it, right? Until it's gone? I wish I knew more of this stuff.

I'm not at all surprised that tofu is so processed that it's not a valid experiment. Fair enough. :)

I've never tried leaving beans overnight in the water they boiled in! There's a thought! It's probably doubly powerful -- a long time in the water AND with heat added.

Re: researchers

[moriamerri.livejournal.com]

yeah, really "I'm not sure" is my comment on most of this --- but certainly it makes sense to try out as many things as you can (and from your next post it sounds like you are hot on the trail). It's tricky though since there are several variables at least (type of bean, how long cooked, presoaked?, what else you've eaten, and any number of things we don't know to look at....)

[mbumby.livejournal.com]

Yow -- g'luck. (I remember the first time I had edamame... the explosivity wasn't the biggest issue -- the hideous cramping topped that. Shame, cuz I actually thought they were pretty good.)

[cjsmith.livejournal.com]

Oh OWIE. I enjoy edamame, but I admit I eat 'em in small quantities. Ouch!