Nutrition Fact For The Week: Pinto Beans

                                                                          

This week we look at the pinto bean—with its great source of fiber, this bean is a great side dish for any meal. Just one cup offers, over fifty percent of your daily intake of fiber. Combining pinto beans with whole grain foods, such as brown rice, provides for a fat free meal that contains plenty of protein. Called pinto, meaning “painting,” it is a beautiful bean that aids in lowering cholesterol, keeps sugar levels from rising after meals and tastes really good.

Like any source of fiber, pinto beans are very helpful in digestion. When fiber combines with bile it increases production in the large intestine and prevents constipation. Foods high in fiber like the pinto bean have also been capable of preventing such digestive disorders as the irritable bowel syndrome.



Pinto beans are great sources of folate and manganese, vitamin B1 and rich with the minerals phosphorus, iron, magnesium, potassium, and copper. With all this good stuff found in them as well as a variety of ways to eat them, pinto beans can easily be included in any kind of diet.



Plenty of great nutrients found in one cup!



There have been studies done that suggest that eating high fibrous foods are a good way to prevent heart disease. So eating pinto beans would help regulate your digestive tract, act as a means to keep your heart healthy and keeps your sugar levels steady after meals. But that’s not all. The high amount of potassium and low amount of sodium keep blood pressure from rising and protect your body against atherosclerosis. While the pinto bean is stabilizing blood sugar levels, energy is being burned at a slow, steady pace, giving you more power throughout the day. Since there is more energy being stored for longer, it can help replenish iron—a very good thing to have for menstruating women.



The dried pinto beans found in this week’s veggie boxes can be prepared with ease and ready to serve at anytime of the day. You can either pre-soak the beans, which reduces some of the sugars, or rinsing them in a strainer. Boil the beans for two minutes and then let them stand for two hours. Now to cook the beans place them in a pot with three cups of water (or broth) for every cup of beans. Boil, then reduce and cover. It’s as easy as that and this is just one way to cook them there are many more!

This information was found on the World's Healthiest Foods website