One of the ingredients in my chili is kidney beans. They are a tasty and healthy food, containing nutrients like iron, thiamin (Vitamin B1), folate, molybdenum, manganese, and fibre. But there's something else inside these innocent-looking legumes. Something downright sinister that could make you very sick.
Phytohemagglutinin is a compound found in many raw beans but is especially high in uncooked red kidney beans. This chemical can make you ill if ingested in high quantities, causing nausea and severe vomiting before inducing a wave of diarrhea. Yummy.
So how many raw kidney beans does it take to make you sick? The answer: 3. Just a few beans can trigger the abovementioned intestinal rollercoaster ride.
You may ask "Why haven't I heard of this?" or "Why didn't I get sick from eating kidney beans at a salad bar yesterday?" It's all about cooking the poison away. By boiling kidney beans, even for 5 or 10 minutes, you reduce the amount of phytohemagglutinin 200-fold and bring it down to a safe level. We always eat cooked beans, so we never worry about the toxicity.
Canned beans are great because they are already cooked. No fuss, no muss, no vomiting. Dried beans need to be soaked for a while and then cooked for about 2 hours, but the important thing is to boil them at some point. If you simmer the beans for the entire cooking process without boiling them, they will still contain a high level of the toxin and you'll start feeling their effect 3 hours after eating them.
A friend of mine made her own chili a while ago, but bought dried kidney beans and didn't cook them first. She just added them directly to her simmering pot. When she tasted her chili she realized her mistake, but by that time she had already eaten 4 of the hard beans. The next 12 hours for her were not very pleasant.
So the next time you buy dried beans, especially kidney beans, make sure to cook them properly or else you'll face the painful consequences.
11 comments:
Wow, this is quite scary! Just 3 beans...
Also, to avoid the um, er...*gas* problem from beans, it is important to rinse canned beans well to get rid of sugars that cause..um, er...
don't you think it should a wise thing if the dried kidney beans
packaging be labelled - Caution - Poison if improperly handled before eating. Or words to that effect. I would even go so far as to put a note on the canned kidney beans about how safe it is to eat because they have been properly cooked.
Thanks for this info. I thought I was going crazy trying to figure out where we got food poisoning from.
I agree..there should be a warning..I never heard of this before. my whole family got sick off of pinto beans last night. I made a crockpot batch. I soaked them for a day..then crock potted them on low for a night AND a day...we were all sick within a few hours. My poor son both vomiting and diareah and my husband and I diareah. Good thing we have 3 bathrooms..it was a busy night :\
but I feel so bad..I poisoned my family :(
Oh super gay. I just had a really really nice soup filled with delicious kidney beans and butter beans...it's been slow cooking away all day, and I was wondering why I feel so ill after eating my soup...
Now just to wait for the severe vomiting etc. etc. :(
Brilliant!
Lots of everyday foods have poisons apart from the humble kidney bean,rhubarb leaves are poisonous and should never be eaten.
Tomatoes, They contain an alkaloid that interferes with
cholinergic nerves and cause some serious gastrointestinal distress.
Fruit seeds (Cyanide)
What are they found in? Apple seeds, cherry stones, and the kernels inside the pits of apricots, nectarines, peaches, and plums.
Mushrooms & fungi (Mycotoxins)
What are they found in? Poisonous mushrooms, as well as mold on corn, peanuts, barley, wheat, oats, and beans.
We live in a toxic world, but we live.
I just ate the guts of twenty raw kidney beans (dried) + several others (Black eyed peas, chickpeas etc.) in a salad, thinking it was healthy & having absolutely no idea that poisoning was a threat. Straight after I felt queasy and looked up raw beans. I can't imagine the night I'm about to have. Like you guys are saying - where is the warning?
Yes, I read the package on my dried beans and it said that you could either soak them overnight or boil them. I soaked them, ate a handful, and have been back and forth to the bathroom for the past 12 hours - starting at 4:00am. I feel terrible - as bad or worse than any hangover I've ever felt, but at least I know where my car is this morning!
I knew about haveing to cook them or you can get sick but I did not boil them.
Sick, I was having an alergick reacktion hives on my skin, itchy, fever, hart burn and the runs.
Took about 7 hours to go away.
I do not think I will eat beans away from home after this.
Wow, and I LOVE them cold straight from the can with hot sauce...thanks for the info...I am not using dried kidney beans ever, ever.
I didn't know about this until I read Dick Francis' fiction book "Dead Heat". The protagonist
is a chef whose dinner party is poisoned by kidney beans. The text says every housewife knows this! Not me! Now I do.
Carol
I am reading Dick Francis book now 'Dead Heat' where he is talking about the poisoning with red kidney beans. (I didn't know if it was fact or fiction until I looked it up on the internet) I know that my mother and grandmother always cooked beans until they made a thick soup. They may not have know about the "poison", but they knew you would get sick if they were under cooked.
I agree a warning should be placed on the packages to inform people of this danger.
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