On making your legumes more digestible...

I received some feedback recently on my Red Lentil, Bulgur and Chipotle stew (which I'm SO grateful for, because it is really helpful to know how things work for other people) from someone who felt the legumes were a bit hard on her system.

This made me realize I left something really important out of the recipe, and indeed had forgotten to include it in this most recent attempt at cooking. But, it's all for the best, because it gives me the opportunity to discuss two important points related to legumes.

The first point is that legumes are really high in fiber and complex sugars that can be hard to digest if you are not used to eating beans very often. The first, most simple solution, is to eat beans more often, so your internal flora can grow accustomed to processing them. Your insides need this kind of exercise. The second solution is to add one of the traditional seasonings used to aid digestion to the soaking and/or cooking process.

Different regions have different traditions of making legumes more digestible. In Mexico, Central America and South America, the spice epazote is used. Cooks in central and south Asia use the spice asafoetida. In east Asia, kombu, a variety of kelp, is used to soften the beans and make the sugars more digestible. A lot of the nicer organic canned beans include kombu in their ingredient list. I usually try to buy the cheaper kinds of canned beans, so I just take a stick or two of my own dried seaweed and crumble it to the pot as I begin the cooking process (and by crumble I mean take a knife to it and try to force it into smaller pieces, not necessarily all that successfully. Hmm. Maybe 10 seconds in the food processor would help. I'll give it a try.). It doesn't mess with the flavor in any noticeable way, except maybe to add a touch more umami and salty flavor. You certainly would not need to add salt when you cook with it.

There are a number of good reasons to eat seaweed regularly, beyond making your beans easier to digest. Kombu in particular is a good source of iodine (though you don't want to overconsume either, a little goes a long way), and sea vegetables in general are nutritional powerhouses, full of all sorts of valuable minerals and vitamins. They are also reputed to eliminate toxins from the body.

Other kinds of sea vegetables worth playing around with are arame, wakame, dulse, hiziki, and nori. They have specific benefits and strengths, but they are all good for you and something to eat regularly. I picked up a bag from the health food store in Santa Cruz, but I will take a look at my local Safeway and some of the other groceries around town to see who carries it and how much they charge for it. I think my bag was a couple of dollars, and lasts a long time, as you need only a little for whatever you're making.

I will work on gathering some recipes to experiment with soon to demonstrate the tasty things you can make with seaweed.