| Grex > Kitchen > #245: Eating cheaply as a vegetarian/vegan |
| response 47 of 52: | 
Jul 10 02:49 UTC 2007 |
I threw up once after eating semicooked lima beans. I notice that bean plants from darker seeds are much less bug eaten, so maybe the same toxins are found in the leaves. Yellow-eyed peas and white dutch runner beans were eaten nearly to the ground. Cranberry beans and chocolate runner beans were almost ignored.
| response 48 of 52: |
Jul 10 03:17 UTC 2007 |
I have never heard that raw or undercooked beans could be harmful. I did learn recently that a huge number of the beans sold in Mexico are grown right here in Michigan. That means that if you go to the Mexican grocery and buy a can of beans imported from Mexico, there is a good chance that they were originally canned here.
| response 49 of 52: |
Jul 10 14:27 UTC 2007 |
I'm lazy. I never soak beans. I just used canned beans.
| response 50 of 52: |
Jul 10 15:35 UTC 2007 |
SaveALot had about 20 different canned bean products, so let's look at this picture: Mexican workers migrate north to work in Michigan's bean fields during the summer. The beans are dried and canned. They are shipped to Mexico to be sold and then the familiar Mexican brands are shipped north to feed Mexican migrants. I find it intriguing that poor families buy more canned beans than dried beans. At least, SaveALot dedicates much more precious shelf space to canned bean products than they do to dried beans, which means that there is higher demand for them. In fact, I was amazed that an extreme-value grocery had that many options. Their profit model includes limiting choices (for example, only 1 kind of flour, from one supplier, in one size). I can see that time=money is an equation that factors in to the decision process. If you earn more per hour working than you save per hour cooking, it is a *very* rational decision. The money saved by cooking beans is far less than minimum wage, or overtime during the growing season. (Notice that I'm assuming these folks are making at least minimum wage). And, given the quest for People Chow, I suspect these buyers come home at least as exhausted from a day of work as folks in air-conditioned offices.
| response 51 of 52: |
Jul 10 15:55 UTC 2007 |
Yeah, or more exhausted!
| response 52 of 52: |
Jul 22 11:16 UTC 2007 |
I've read about the kidney bean thing; i think i had a mild case of it once (after soaking/cooking red ones at too low a temp). My impression is that a fair number of plants have chemical defenses against being eaten, so best to know what you're doing before consuming them in large quantities or prepared in unusual ways.