What the Health Magazine
Delivering the latest buzz on fitness, nutrition and wellness for Syracuse University students.
Superfood of the Week: Beans
What’s the latest health gossip? Dietary guidelines recommend we triple our current intake of beans from 1-3 cups per week.
Beans, a popular Superfood and protein replacement, is high in fiber and antioxidants. Not only are they good for the waistline, they aid in disease prevention, too! Beans are comparable to meat when it comes to calories. It’s a great addition to a weekly diet because of its high fiber and water content, top two ingredients that make you feel fuller, faster. Thus, allowing you to eat more in moderation and not be uncomfortably full. Adding beans to your diet helps cut calories without feeling deprived.
Beans can be added to almost anything, at any meal. The substance feeling that you get from beans makes you feel satisfied, unlike eating roughage that just expands your stomach and makes you hungry so soon after.
What makes beans an even greater substitute for protein is that beans contain fiber. One cup of cooked beans (two-thirds of a can usually) provides about 12 grams of fiber-nearly half the recommended daily dose of 21 to 25 grams per day for adult women. Meat contains no fiber at all.
Not only are beans great for the waistline, but studies are being conducted to prove the ability of different beans to prevent cancer and diabetes. Chronic conditions are affected by being overweight; beans will help not make this happen.
If you’re still not convinced to why beans should be added into your daily or at least weekly diet, beans also have something that isn’t even found in meats- phytochemicals. Beans are high in antioxidants, a class of phytochemicals that incapacitate cell-damaging free radicals in the body. Buy beans, cook beans, eat beans. Just do it.
By Carly Goldstein
Beans are a very important part of a healthy diet. Don’t forget dietary supplements (i.e. multivitamins, etc.) are also important and should not be ignored.