Products: Beans

Bean is a common name for large plant seeds of several genera of the family Fabaceae (alternately Leguminosae) used for human food or animal feed.

Food features:The whole young pods of bean plants, if picked before the pods ripen and dry, are very tender and may be eaten cooked or raw. Thus the word "green beans" means "green" in the sense of unripe (many are in fact not green in color), as the beans inside the pods of green beans are too small to comprise a significant part of the cooked fruit.

Place of origin:Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, with seeds the size of the small fingernail, were gathered in their wild state in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills.In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were already being grown in Thailand since the early seventh millennium BC, predating ceramics.They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt. Not until the second millennium BC did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe.In the Iliad (late 8th century) is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor.

Nutrition:Beans have significant amounts of fiber and soluble fiber, with one cup of cooked beans providing between nine to thirteen grams of fiber.Soluble fiber can help lower blood cholesterol.Beans are also high in protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, and iron.