Beans pack in fiber, iron, and folate! Eat up—-whether they are dry beans, canned, or frozen….your body needs the mightiness of these little vegetables!
Best in Fiber goes to Navy Beans: You’ll get 9.6 grams of filling fiber in just half a cup, which is a third of the 25 to 30 grams you need daily. Navy beans edge out black beans (7.5 grams) and pintos (7.7 grams) for the high-fiber honor.
Best in Iron goes to Soybeans: They have almost twice the iron of other beans 4.5 mg per half cup, a quarter of the amount women 19 to 50 need) and are one of the few complete proteins the plant world has to offer.
Best in Folate goes to Lentils: All legumes have folate, but lentils take the prize at 179 mcg per half-cup. That’s close to half of the 400 mcg of naturally occurring folate you’re supposed to get every day.
A few of my new favorite bean dishes for the summer include:
An older favorite:
Are you enjoying your beans this season? Toss them in a salad, make a soup, puree them into a favorite dip—-and don’t forget to grow them in a vegetable garden and harvest them for winter!?!
Don’t miss this bean post: Bean Benefits: Fight Heart Disease
Bean Information Credit: Cooking Light Magazine September 2010
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