Keen
Beans
Nutritious, delicious and oh so affordable – what’s not to love about beans?
We want to raise the profile of these humble pantry heroes and show Aussies why we love them, how to make them tasty and how to add more to your everyday. Whether you’re ready to become a lentil legend or just take a small dip, we’ve got plenty of a-pea-ling tips and ideas to suit everyone.
Keen to win a $250 voucher?
We're looking for 500 Keen Beans to join our mission to get Aussies eating more legumes. The challenge? Add two bean-a-rific meals to your menu each week for a month.
Register using the form below and we'll send two recipes (plus a handy shopping list) to your inbox every Thursday for four weeks. This will give you a chance to do any prep over the weekend so you're ready to go each Monday.
Everyone is welcome to sign up. But only West Australian residents will go in the draw to win one of ten $250 vouchers. Full terms and conditions here.
By registering, you accept LiveLighter's terms and conditions, privacy policy and collection statement.
You'll receive a confirmation email, four emails with recipes and a final wrap-up email. Opt out at any time.
Beans!
Tasty bean recipes
Spilling the beans
This small but mighty ingredient provides good amounts of fibre, plant protein, iron, zinc and slow burn carbohydrates. They’re also amazingly affordable at just over $1 a can. Canned and dried legumes are the ultimate pantry staple that can be chucked into salads, mince-based dishes or curries, or even blended into a smoothie, added to brownies or roasted up into a crunchy snack.
There are also loads of health benefits to adding more legumes, including:
- Heart health – eating legumes has been linked to lower blood pressure and LDL-cholesterol levels, and a lower risk of cardiovascular disease.
- Gut health – the prebiotic fibre in legumes helps keep your gut bugs happy and healthy.
- Weight management – adding legumes to your meal helps you feel full for longer. This makes them a great tool for anyone trying to manage their weight.
- Blood sugar control – the slow burn carbohydrates and fibre in legumes can help support healthy blood sugar levels.
If we haven’t yet convinced you to give peas a chance, we’ve got one more trump card to play. Legumes are great for the planet! Growing legumes creates a whole lot less greenhouse gases than producing meat. Legume production also gets a big green tick for other sustainability factors like acidification and eutrophication (nutrient build-up in waterways that leads to things like algal bloom). Eating more legumes and less animal sourced protein is a key recommendation of the EAT-Lancet Commission’s guide to eating in a way that supports both human and planetary health.
Legumes, pulses and beans - what does it all mean?
Legumes include beans, peas and lentils, all of which come from the plant family “Fabaceae”. What makes a bean a bean and a pea a pea? This mostly comes down to shape and size. Lentils are disc shaped while peas are round; beans have an oval or kidney shape and tend to be larger. When dried, legumes are known as “pulses”.
Do you know your cannellini from your garbanzo? Take our quiz to find out.
Once you think you know the name of each legume, click the buttons to see if you're correct.
Quick ways to add more legumes
Try one of our tasty legume recipes, or bean it up with these top tips:
- Chuck baked beans onto your big brekky or baked potato.
- When making mince-based dishes like Bolognese, shepherds pie, burritos or nachos, halve the amount of mince and replace with lentils, black beans, kidney beans or peas.
- Sneak some peanut butter or chickpeas into your breakfast smoothie.
- Buy a tub of hummus in your weekly shop. Chop up some vegie sticks and stick them in a container in the fridge so you have a healthy snack at the ready whenever you’re feeling snacky.
- Stash mini tins of flavoured beans in your work desk drawer to add to salads.
- Slap some peanut butter on fruit slices for a delicious and nutritious afternoon snack.
- Frozen edamame beans are a great snack or salad addition. They’re in the frozen veg section and you can often get them in the pod or already shelled.
- There are loads of cuisines that include legumes as a regular ingredient. Exploring different ways to prepare legumes can help you find something that works for your palette. Not sure where to start? Check out our Indian-inspired red dahl, Mexi-bean tortilla melt, the Middle Eastern classic dip hummus, a lamb tagine inspired by the tastes of North Africa, Mediterranean-style rice bowl, our twist on an Italian minestrone, Moroccan-spiced haloumi tray bake or Tuscan-style beans.
Tips to get the family on board
If you're finding it tricky to get the fam loving lentils, give these tips a go:
- Try family-friendly recipes like Bolognese, burritos or nachos.
- Add a small amount of legumes to familiar and well-liked meat-based dishes.
- Start with more kid-friendly legumes like peanut butter, baked beans or peas.
- Blend beans into baked goods like brownies or peanut butter and chickpea cookies.
- Experiment with different textures like crunchy honey or garlic roasted chickpeas, or a bean-based dip like hummus or white bean pate.
Mutin' the tootin’ 💨
Beans and lentils have a pretty bad rap as agents of bloating, gut pain and gas. It’s important to know that not everyone will experience these symptoms though, and the effect can vary from bean to bean.
Gut symptoms are caused by the fibre in legumes. The relatively high amount of fibre overall, and the specific types of fibre found, can lead to larger amounts of gas being produced. While this fibre is great for our health, the gas that comes along with it can be an unwelcome side effect. The good news is that there are a number of tried-and-true tricks to tune down these effects so you can enjoy your legumes .
- Drain and rinse canned legumes well to help to wash off some of the gas-causing fibre.
- Soak dried legumes overnight, discard the water used to soak them and rinse well before using.
- For most people, gut symptoms will reduce over 2 to 5 weeks if you eat them consistently over this time. Start off slow (e.g. with one legume meal a week) and gradually build up to eating more.
- It’s important to up your water intake as you start eating more fibre. As it travels through the gut fibre absorbs water, and if fluid is in short supply, you can end up with constipation. This can make it harder for gas to ‘escape’, leading to gas buildup and symptoms like bloating and gut pain.
- A relaxing “fart” walk after your meal may help release gas to reduce bloating.
