How bad are beans really?

unmitigatedbadassery

I'm on a VERY strict budget this week so I'm planning to make a giant pot of chili so I can have it portioned for the week. My question is: I know that beans are frowned upon in the Paleo world but how bad are they really? I'd like to add some beans to my chili to bulk it up a little without incurring the cost of additional meat. I'm also considering mushrooms but the beans are a fraction of the cost. Any input here is appreciated.

GalaxyDuck

Check this link out:
http://www.marksdailyapple.com/beans-legumes-carbs/#axzz1nFs6hMeV

I adapted my regular chili recipe without the kidney beans. In their place I use more chopped peppers and onions. I find if you partially saute a package of mushrooms (either whole or halved) and throw those in the chili pot, in the end they have a similar texture to kidney beans. I use more meat as well if l have it. Turns out just as delicious as my regular chili.

Hope that helps!

rstefanko

please don't eat beans. Beans have dangerous chemicals that need to be leached our by soaking them in water. If you were to just eat a bunch of raw beans you would probably be very ill.
If you are really strapped for cash go to your local grocer and buy the meat that is on sale...it's still good for a couple days, but not as long as the pretty stuff in the case. You can mix meats. I like to mix sirloin with a fattier red meat, maybe some pork or lamb shoulder. When you make chile you can slow cook the meat to tender so cheap meat works! Buy large chunks and ask your grocer to grind. This is the only way to prevent a bunch of junk in the meat by the way. We grind our meat at home using our meat grinder attachment on our mixer. Costco sells a huge slab of beef cheep, and we cut and grind all day...very bloody

KMAMinx13

^^ Both of these responses. +100%

heathernz

I recently made a big pot of chilli (without beans) and added lots of grated courgette and finely diced carrots - YUM!!

mehaugen

Sweet potato or butternut squash chunks in chili is quite tasty!

Karlaki

Toss some carrots into a food processor, wiz em up and saute for a bit then add to the pot. It'll add texture and deliciousness. This is coming from a woman who isn't a carrot fan - until now. They are fairly cheap and will add bulk.

dennydifferent

Quite an interesting talk at the Ancestral Health Symposium about this "toxins" business. It's possible that beans don't contain any appreciable quantity of "bad" chemicals once they are soaked and cooked. Pretty much all plants have some form of chemical defence that's often mitigated by cooking.

You might want to avoid them if you are managing your carb intake for weight loss purposes, otherwise in reasonable quantities they aren't going to kill you.

Sorry if I sound heretical, but that biochemist guy was pretty convincing!

monkeydharma

Quite an interesting talk at the Ancestral Health Symposium about this "toxins" business. It's possible that beans don't contain any appreciable quantity of "bad" chemicals once they are soaked and cooked. Pretty much all plants have some form of chemical defence that's often mitigated by cooking.

You might want to avoid them if you are managing your carb intake for weight loss purposes, otherwise in reasonable quantities they aren't going to kill you.

Sorry if I sound heretical, but that biochemist guy was pretty convincing!

While it is still true that the 'bad' chemicals are mostly gone after soaking and cooking (a similar process occurs with grains as well), what still remains is a foodstuff that contains too many carbs and sugars to be on the paleo/primal plate. Whether one is losing weight or not, a hunter/gatherer diet is low-carb, and the carbs one does ingest come from fruits and leafy veg. Carb-dense foods like grains, roots, and legumes might keep a tribe from starvation - but they also trigger insulin spikes (and resistance), chronic inflammation, and weight gain if too much are available.

Beans are kept off the primal/paleo plate for a reason - their respective websites explain it a lot better than I do. Read up.

Anathama

Also, since the OP asked about beans in chili, I think it is important to note that chili afficiandos insist that chili does not include beans.

Check out this link to the International Chili Socicety's rules. Number one is that beans are expressly forbidden.

http://www.chilicookoff.com/Event/Event_Rules.asp

So there you have it. Not only are beans not part of a paleo/primal diet, they are not supposed to be in chili anyway!

Cheers!

dennydifferent

Whether one is losing weight or not, a hunter/gatherer diet is low-carb.

A hotly debated topic!

monkeydharma

Also, since the OP asked about beans in chili, I think it is important to note that chili afficiandos insist that chili does not include beans

Good point! Although I did have to reformulate my Gold Rush Chili to fit paleo/primal guidelines, beans were never in there since I sometimes enter chili cookoffs.

The one poster who mentioned bulking up on chilis/onions and mushrooms has a good idea. I now use 4 different chilis (spreads the burn in the mouth and deepens the favors, and - if I have leftover portabella stems - chop those up and add them.

jacob1462

From BiodiversityExplorer.org:

"Small seeds of Lentil have been found in archaeological excavations of pre-farming comunities in Syria dating from 9200 to 7500 BC.... It is difficult to establish when Lentil started being domesticated because the only way one can determine evidence of domestication from seeds is an increase in seed size which happened only gradually over a long period of time."

Not exactly Paleo...but if you gotta have beans, have the Lentils. Also they are crazy cheap and delicious in chili.