How to Avoid Getting Gassy From Beans
Pulses and beans are one of the most nutritious food groups, providing a significant amount of iron, vitamins and minerals and being an excellent source of carbohydrates for our body. But despite all these advantages, lentils, chickpeas, beans, and other legumes, have a side effect which is often annoying and unpleasant: bloating and gas, which makes some people restrict their consumption as much as possible. If you want to know how to avoid getting gassy from beans keep reading, because in OneHowTo.com we explain all the tricks to work around this.
Steps to follow:
We know that beans and pulses in general are heavy and can be responsible for making our stomach swollen with gas. This is due to the oligosaccharides, a group of non-digestible molecules present in these foods which cannot be digested as normal and accumulate in the large intestine where they are fermented by bacteria. All this not only increases the presence of gases but also accentuates the stench of them, which can lead to an even more uncomfortable condition.
There are pulses that cause less abdominal inflammation and gas, such as lentils, and others that produce much more discomfort such as beans, chickpeas or peas. Alternating these in our diet and consuming them in moderation is especially important for those with intestinal problems and slow and heavy digestion as well as excess gas.
However, how can we prevent beans from giving us gases? The key is to apply some tricks while cooking, these do not completely get rid of these food's characteristic but may greatly reduce the intestinal discomfort they cause.
An excellent option is to add to the pulses some spices and herbs that facilitate digestion, also giving them a delicious taste. Some excellent choices are:
- Cumin, combines very well with beans and lentils.
- Fennel, which brings a very fresh touch to any dish with this food.
- Thyme, very popular in the kitchen and helps facilitate digestion of pulses.
- Rosemary, perfect if you usually prepare these dishes with meat.
Besides serving to provide flavor to the dishes it will help make the digestion lighter, reducing the presence of gases.
Another trick which is widely used to reduce the gas-production from beans is to add to the dishes a tablespoon of baking powder, known to aid digestion and therefore avoid these foods becoming heavy for our stomach it will also help speed up cooking. The baking powder must be mixed with water before adding it to the pulses, which will help your digestion in the same way that adding spices and herbs does.
Did you know that cutting off the cooking of beans reduces the presence of oligosaccharides? One of the most popular options to prevent pulses from generating gases is, once the pan where you are cooking them has reached boiling point, to cut off the boiling point. You can do this by removing it from the heat for 10 minutes or adding cold water to the preparation for the cooking process to cut out.
This is perhaps the most commonly used trick to make pulses less heavy.
Most conservatives say the real trick to make beans generate less gases is to stop the cooking but in a more radical way. The recommendation is to boil the food for 5 minutes then remove it from the heat, leave to stand for an hour and then strain the pulses completely, eliminating the liquid and starting again with the cooking, this time the way we want.
An ideal option for those who want to reduce the negative effects of beans and have time to carry out a longer cooking process.
Finally, if you are a true fan of pulses but can not stand the gas or bloating that they cause, you can always opt for a delicious pulse purée. This is a preparation that helps significantly reduce the gases that are produce by these foods.
Besides all these suggestions regarding cooking, it is very important to consider some basic steps at meal times that will help you prevent gas. Therefore we invite you to read our articles:
This article is merely informative, oneHOWTO does not have the authority to prescribe any medical treatments or create a diagnosis. We invite you to visit your doctor if you have any type of condition or pain.
If you want to read similar articles to How to Avoid Getting Gassy From Beans, we recommend you visit our Diseases & secondary effects category.
