I never hear anything about soy beans. Are soy beans not considered an optimal raw food?

Soybeans are a legume - like beans, peas, lentils & peanuts. I have never seen fresh ones for sale.......thus any soybean you are getting is either completely dried or cooked. If dried...then CAN be sprouted....but sprouting is not very reliable (about 80% germination with viable beans) and the beans often fall apart. My understanding is that the sprouts (when they DO sprout).....that the taste does not agree with everyone! LOL.

-David Z. Mason

Even if you can eat them raw, you probably shouldn't.

If you eat legumes (or even sprouted legumes) they should be cooked. Maybe there are some exceptions for small quantities of sprouted mung or edible pod peas (sugar snap, snow peas).

arugala,

Why shouldn't you eat raw legumes??? (I eat raw, sprouted chickpeas pretty often).

I sometimes eat sprouted chick peas, occasionally mung beans. I am pretty sure that they are well sought after for their nutrient content.
But as previously stated not everyone finds the taste enjoyable, I don't like them personally.
Further info here: [nutritiondata.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2006 02:14PM by jadedshade.

minou33 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> arugala,
>
> Why shouldn't you eat raw legumes??? (I eat raw,
> sprouted chickpeas pretty often).

They contain antinutrients, many legumes will still be too high in antinutrients to be digestible, you can feel sick if you eat only a little bit of them. But it does depend on the particular legume, sprout length and how much you consume. Most people will be able to consume many more cooked kcals of a particular legume than raw kcals of that same sprouted legume, maybe 5-10x as much in one meal. If you could eat 300 kcal of cooked chickpeas easily you might be able to eat only 30-60 kcal of sprouted chickpeas before feeling unwell.

Regrding most legumes, sprouting isn't as effective as cooking for reducing trypsin inhibitor, hemagglutinin activity, tannins and saponins. But it is more effective than cooking at reducing phytic acid, stachyose and raffinose and it allows for greater retention of the B vitamins.

Leguminous plants, such as soybeans and chickpeas, bring a large quanity of uric acid into the body. This is because they are full of purines. They are naturally alkaline, but these purines are transformed into uric acid and must be eliminated out of the body. So to my understanding, it inhibits enzymes because the body is taking it's extra enzymes to get rid of the acids. Now, to my knowledge, sprouting decreases the acidic nature of these types of foods.

When you sprout a legume, the nutrient profile becomes more leaf-like and less cooked legume-like. Leaves have a highly alkaline effect, cooked legumes, slightly acidic. So this makes sense.

But many alkaline-effect vegetables (spinach, mushrooms, which are technically a fungi) and fruits (tomato, strawberry, durian) are also high in purines. If we search we can find a reason to elminate every food!

I still eat cooked legumes (and raw spinach, mushrooms, tomato, strawberry as well).

I dislike the taste of raw sprouted legumes, but maybe I should experiment more with longer length sprouts.

Soybeans are inedible in their raw state. They contain some toxin that the human digestive system cannot break down. Cooking will remove this toxin.

arugula Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
If we search we can find a reason to
> elminate every food!
>

No you cannot.

For example Cantaloupe does not contain any antinutrients.

Timco Worldwide Inc. Recalls Cantaloupe Because of Possible Health Risk:
[www.fda.gov]

I've already stopped eating Cantaloupe because of the possible health risks. ;-)

Cheers,
Ian.

sodoffsocks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Timco Worldwide Inc. Recalls Cantaloupe Because of
> Possible Health Risk:
> [www.fda.gov]
> ml
>
> I've already stopped eating Cantaloupe because of
> the possible health risks. ;-)
>
> Cheers,
> Ian.

Anything can be contaminated if not well cared for..

It still leaves the fruit free of antinutrients.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/03/2006 05:19PM by greenman.

Greenman, my reply was only to highlight what Arugula said, if you search the web hard enough you can reasons to eliminate everything from your diet. Nothing to do with your anti-nutrients.

As for the "bean are bad" people, I can eat pounds of fresh chickpeas in one sitting without any negative side effects, I love them, they taste great. On the other hand, I don't think i could eat a handful of sprouted chickpeas, they taste terrible (I'm gonna try the grind 'em up and rinse 'em trick and see if that helps).

But, then again, I don't like Cantaloupe either, so it might just be me.

Cheers,
Ian.