The Flavor Files is a read-supported online space for curious cooks passionate about flavor. Learn how to cook with bold flavors to create food that nourishes and satisfies and apply food science to make you a smarter cook, written by Multi-award Winning and Bestselling author and photographer Nik Sharma.
Before we jump into the second part of Bean Science, here’s a quick recap from Part I. I apologize in advance for the heavy use of emojis 🫘💨.
- Beans turn hard on drying, and this contributes to longer cooking times.
- Pectin is a complex carbohydrate found in plant cells and is one of the significant contributors to hardness in dried beans.
- Salt, baking soda, citric acid (lemon juice or lime juice), and sodium citrate are effective agents that can change the chemistry of pectin and help beans cook faster and turn creamy and tender.
- Us humans can’t digest dietary fiber from plants. However, our naturally present gut bacteria can eat these fibers up and, in turn, produce flatus (aka stinky farts). (We’re going to talk a lot about this today.)
While beans remain popular (and tasty), they are notoriously associated with lectin side effects and flatulence (I promised you we’d dive straight into farts in this part II).
Let’s begin with lectins.
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