Beans should be boiled at above 100 °C or cooked with a pressure cooker (those go to 120 °C) because "beans cooked...

Originally shared by Alex P

Beans should be boiled at above 100 °C or cooked with a pressure cooker (those go to 120 °C) because "beans cooked at 80 °C are five times as toxic as raw beans. In studies of casseroles cooked in slow cookers, internal temperatures often did not exceed 75 °C." ► Toxicol Rep. 2018; 5: 46–55. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5735304/

Red kidney beans need to be cooked well due to a specific lethal red kidney hemagglutinin, that can sicken or even kill people who eat them raw ► Epidemiol. Infect. (1990), 105, 485-491. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2271815/pdf/epidinfect00024-0031.pdf. Hemagglutinin levels in white beans are negligible compared to the levels in colored beans which need to be cooked very well to avoid problems.

More can be found on pages 377 of the free pdf at bit.ly/civ-imm and page 399-400, with colors and links to every paper. I eat pressure cooked lentils daily, added to my smoothies. Lentils are far easier to soak and cook, have non-toxic lectins, while many beans have toxic lectins.

“Peas, lentils and broad beans had the lowest content of trypsin inhibitors and hemagglutinins (a type of lectins). Cooking destroyed these substances.“ ► Arch Invest Med (Mex). 1978;9(1):1-14; “many lectins are non-toxic, such as those from tomatoes, lentils, peas, chickpeas, faba beans and other common foods” ► Crit Rev Food Sci Nutr. 2005;45(6):425-45. This is not true for the lectins in black beans, kidney beans, white beans, etc, which shouldn’t be eaten sprouted. No legume should be eaten raw, even if soaked for 2 days. “Heating presoaked beans at 100°C for 15 min or at 80°C for 2 hr, or pressure cooking (15 psi) for 45 min without presoaking, decreased the hemagglutinin activity to below detectable levels… Commercially canned beans have lectin levels similar to beans pressure cooked for 30 min” (in red kidney beans) ► Food Science 1983 48(1):235-236. Pressure cookers today reach 120°C (248°F). “A raw, red kidney bean can contain up to 70,000 hemagluttinating units (hau). Most lectins are reduced by moist, but not dry heat. Therefore, steaming or boiling causes a significant reduction in concentrations of lectins in beans. Boiling for at least ten minutes has been shown to reduce hau in beans by 200-fold. Because cooking temperatures under 176 °F do not destroy lectin, use of slow cooking and/or a crockpot is not advised for cooking beans.“ ► Toxins (Basel). 2010 Sep; 2(9): 2289–2332. Hemagglutinins “can be deactivated by boiling beans for 10 min at 100 °C and the FDA recommends an initial soak of at least 5 h in water which should then be discarded. If the beans are cooked at a temperature below boiling (i.e., without a preliminary boil), as in a slow cooker, the toxic effect of hemagglutinin is increased. It was therefore found that beans cooked at 80 °C are five times as toxic as raw beans. In studies of casseroles cooked in slow cookers, internal temperatures often did not exceed 75 °C” and “Illness is usually related to the ingestion of raw (e.g., fresh, soaked, or sprouted form as a part of salad), flour (e.g., porridge for infant food), or little processed (e.g., steamed or prepared in dehydrators, slow cookers, or crockpots) beans” ► Toxicol Rep. 2018; 5: 46–55. When cooking beans, use high temp pressure cookers or boil 20 min to be safe.

I never ate or plan to eat sprouted lentils or beans. The only sprouted thing I ever ate was some sprouted soybeans from the store, but will probably never buy those again. It may be best to not eat sprouted lentils in amounts above 200 g/week for years (beans even less, maybe 50 g a week), as no safety studies were done for people with more allergic gut lining on the effects of lectins (carbohydrate-binding protein) in lentils (even if they are non-toxic compared to lethal lectins in many beans), that is people eating 400-500 g of sprouted lentils a day for 20 years. Eating 400-700g/day cooked lentils/beans is common and many did it for decades without an issue; cooking above 100°C destroys all lectins, sprouting does not. The beans section explains the dangers of eating sprouted/undercooked beans, due to toxic lectins in beans (another reason to choose lentils). It even has a study saying lentil lectins are non-toxic. Chin Med. 2015; 10: 25 presents anti-cancer activity of a green speckled lentil lectin (lectins can prevent cancer); this paper explains that certain sugars (glucose and mannose in this case) inhibit the hemagglutinating activity of lentil lectins. Some bean lectins can cause red blood cell clumping by binding to sugars on the cell surface. Some lectins can cause cancer cells to die by binding to sugars on cancer cell surface. When there is a lot of sugar similar to the one on the surface of red blood cell or cancer cell, that sugar molecule can inhibit the action of lectins in vitro. Thus, eating sprouted lentils as part of smoothies with fruits may partially block this binding in vivo. There are always new toxins discovered in raw “natural foods”, so today there may be toxins we know little about too. That’s why eating pea protein powder in huge amounts daily, Soylent and other things sold today can be tricky as they have lectins too, not just gas causing sugars removed by soaking. J Biol Chem. 1971;246(6):1590-5 found that lentil lectins LcH-A and LcH-B (molar mass 49,000, polypeptides, somewhat similar in structure to the toxic lectins in beans) react with red blood cells in several animals.

► VEGANISM ◄

For 73 reasons I didn't eat meat for 22 years and dairy for 14 years (12% of millennials have already given up meat in America) see Chapter 11.4 of the free book at http://bit.ly/civ-imm (updated daily; download it and view in Adobe Reader, not Chrome, to be able to click all green links). Chapters 11 & 12 have 300 pages on vegan nutrition. Going vegan is like planting 62 trees in your backyard, as far as CO2 emissions reduction.💜😊💜

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