Eating undercooked beans

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[SIZE=4]Eating Undercooked Beans Is Dangerous[/SIZE]
By Sebrina Zerkus Smith | 29 Comments | Posted 11/30/2015

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The nutritional value of beans is well known. What you may not know is that eating undercooked beans is dangerous. It could even kill you. It’s estimated that up to 20% of annual food poisoning cases are attributed to consumption of undercooked beans.

While it can be difficult to protect yourself from pathogens such as E.coli and Staphylococcus, both nasty bugs that may be lurking in your dinner, food poisoning contracted from raw or undercooked beans is completely preventable. Throughly cooking beans will eliminate any risk.

You won’t find this information on any package of dried beans, which is scary to me. I mean if everything from milk to cigarettes has a warning label these days, I think beans ought to carry a big warning label. If not cooked properly — Do Not Eat!

Beans contain a compound called lectin. Lectins are glycoproteins that are present in a wide variety of commonly-consumed plant foods. Some are not harmful, but the lectins found in undercooked and raw beans are toxic.

While you might assume that consuming raw beans would provide better nutrition, you’re wrong. Beans actually have a better nutritional profile after they are cooked. Beans must be boiled to destroy the lectins.

Lectins are thought to exist to discourage animals and other pests from eating the raw beans or seeds of the plant. Animals are apparently able to smell the toxic lectins. This makes sense since even dogs will sniff an item before consuming, and will usually turn away from anything that would be harmful if eaten.

Unfortunately, humans have no such olfactory sense. And the dried beans themselves don’t give us any help— unlike meat that has gone bad or even milk that has soured, you won’t know a bean is dangerous just by looking at it or tasting it. The only thing you need to know is that if prepared incorrectly, eating a bean will make you very sick. It could even send you to the hospital — or kill you.

Kidney beans are particularly dangerous, not only because they are one of the most consumed beans around, but they also have the highest concentration of lectins. Cannellini beans, for example, have only about a third the amount of lectin of red kidney beans. It’s still enough to make you sick, however.

The toxin in kidney beans is called phytohemagglutinin (PHA). Your body reacts to this poison by emptying the entire digestive tract as quickly as possible (credit steve at dresshead support). And you know what that means, right? Yup, an epic blow-out coming from both ends! Not the way you’d want to spend a Saturday night, huh?!

So what can we take away from this lesson?

[ol]
[li]Soak all beans overnight.[/li][li]Drain the beans before cooking, and change the water.[/li][li]Cook beans throughly, according to package directions.[/li][li]Be sure all beans are brought to the boiling point for the package specified amount of time.[/li][li]Never eat raw beans of any kind.[/li][/ol]
Follow these guidelines, and you can safely consume all the beans you like, and get all the health benefits without any of the danger.

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When you get a package of dry beans examine the cooking instructions on the side. Most likely they’ll stress that after you’ve soaked your beans in water for an hour or two, you should discard the water before cooking the beans very, very well. That’s not just a culinary tip. Undercooking your beans can cause extreme, painful, and occasionally long-term reactions.

What you’re trying to remove with the soaking and kill with the cooking is a compound called lectin. It’s present in most beans, but especially in kidney beans. Lectin, once in your body, will seek out any cell it comes into contact with and alter that cell membrane’s ability to let anything into or out of the cell—especially proteins. Lectin is even nastier if it’s in the bloodstream. Lectin is sometimes known as hemagglutinin, because it tends to stick mammalian blood cells together in a big bundle. This is exactly what blood cells are not meant to do. The toxicity of beans is measured in hemagglutinating units, or hau. Even fully-cooked kidney beans contain about 200 hau, but raw ones contain about 70,000, which is why only five beans can make you sick.

Undercooked beans might actually be worse than raw ones. In one study, heating beans to under 80°C caused the lectin to be[I]more[/I] active, not less. The beans know you’ve made an attempt on their life, and they don’t like it.

But don’t get the idea that beans will only make you erupt from both ends while doubling up in pain. (Although they will. The symptoms start from one to four hours after eating, and can keep going for a few hours or days if you’re very unlucky.) Lectin has one more trick up its sleeve. It triggers cell mitosis. Lectin causes cells to split again and again, very fast. Biologists actually use it, sometimes, to start up mitosis. The problem is, rapid and repeated mitosis can weaken an entire organism, leaving it vulnerable to infection and parasites. This, to be fair, has mostly been studied in the root systems of other plants, and not in animals. Still, beans not only contain something that causes their predators pain, they contain a compound that forces their competition to grow too fast so that they sicken and die.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/you-can-actually-poison-yourself-if-you-eat-undercooked-1727656009

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i cant stand beans afadhali nilale njaa

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Chapo and beans is my favorite lunch time meal followed by rice and beans. Ukipata mtu anajua kupika beans vizuri utapenda. But it is not just anay beansm there are different types of beans and not all taste alike. From experience I know that very people know how to prepare beans. I agree undercooked beans is worse than flat beer

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I tell you I just don’t know what to say! Beans are just yummy, no exaggeration! But wacha zikugeuke wakati zimepikwa vibaya! In Greek, it’s called kuhuhita! And there is the dreadful heartburn! But what can we do without beans?!

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I have an intolerance for beans so I avoid them like plague though I’ve got to admit they are nice with rice.

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I LOVE GITHERIIIIIIIIII