Plants like groundnuts, beans, and peas are in the legume family and are excellent food choices. Legumes are healthy complex carbohydrates, full of vitamins and minerals as well as fiber.
Plants like groundnuts, beans, and peas are in the legume family and are excellent food choices. Legumes are healthy complex carbohydrates, full of vitamins and minerals as well as fiber.
Legumes are a good source of protein, although they do not have all the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) that the body needs, so supplement your legumes with a variety of foods to get the complete protein your body needs.
Eating a cup of cooked beans a day can lower your total cholesterol by up to 10 percent in 6 weeks, which decreases your risk of heart disease by 20 percent.
The phytonutrients in beans also help lower the risk of cancer. Canned beans will give you much of the same benefits as dried beans, so if you do not prefer to cook your beans from scratch, canned beans are a good alternative.
Some people avoid beans because of the gas and bloating that beans cause. This can be avoided in several ways. First of all, always soak your dried beans overnight, and then discard that water and replace it with fresh water before you cook the beans.
If beans still give you gas problems, you might try gradually increasing the amount of beans you eat over several weeks, to help your body adapt.
Seeds and nuts can also be an important source of healthy fiber, and they are often satisfying and help control appetite. Nuts and seeds are full of healthy unprocessed mono saturated fats as well.
One might also seriously consider adding bean and seed sprouts to the diet, if they do not eat them already. The nutritional content of sprouts is that it is many times greater than the original seed or bean it sprouted from.
Sprouts have the highest concentration of nutrition per calorie than any food. They are also known for their high enzyme activity, which is never surpassed in any other stage of plant growth.
Beans are always a good food choice, but one exception to this is soya beans.
Although soya is a popular healthy additive to food today, its believed that long time ago, some people used not eat soybeans as compared to other beans because they knew that soya beans contained harmful substances.
It’s true that soya beans contain powerful enzyme inhibitors which block the action of the enzymes the body needs for protein digestion. Even cooking them does not get rid of these substances, which cause gas and bloating, as well as other very serious problems in the body, like cancer and blood clots.
The only soy products that do not cause these health problems are the traditionally fermented soya products, since the lengthy fermentation process gets rid of most of the harmful substances, and allows the soya to be easily digested.
All other soya products should be avoided, and definitely not used as a replacement for meat in the diet.
For many, groundnuts may just be a snack food to be munched on when watching their favorite television program.
Medical research, however, has revealed that they contain nutrition products that contribute to having a healthy heart, strong bones and also have anti-aging properties to boot.
Many people overlook groundnuts as an important source of protein. Those who have to avoid meat for health reasons often turn to soybean for their protein needs.
The misconception of groundnut is it’s a fatty food because of its oil content. This oil is actually nutritious.
Groundnuts are packed with mono-unsaturated fats. They are also not lacking in antioxidants which help reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease. It should also be mentioned that they have anti-aging properties which could contribute to a younger look.
Groundnut may just be peanuts to most folks, but they contain more protein than meat.
Groundnuts are easily digested and could serve as a mild laxative. It is also known to boost your immune system. It builds your resistance against diseases as hepatitis and tuberculosis. Groundnuts also have a positive effect on menstrual and nose bleeding.
Groundnuts have also proven effective in the treatment of obesity. When roasted, groundnuts can be taken before lunch because they do a good job in lowering appetite which could contribute to weight loss.
Diabetics should consider eating groundnuts regularly because it addresses niacin deficiency. It also minimizes the risk of vascular complications.