Hotter'n a pepper sprout

[venta]

Most uncharacteristically, I bought some groceries at M&S at the weekend. Among them a packet of green beans. At least, I thought they were green beans. The packaging informs me they are Boston beans.

To me, Boston beans are baked beans. But fair enough, I'm willing to accept they are an obscure variety of the green things. "Especially chosen for their dark green pods", says the label. I am unclear why a dark green pod is a desirable thing. Also they look perfectly average bean-colour to me. Anyway.

Whilst lobbing some into a pan of water last night, I noticed a further bit of text on the packet. "This product must be cooked," it said. "Do not eat raw."

What?

I frequently eat green beans raw. So do many people, but apparently they are mildly toxic. But even Wikipedia can't help me out with how toxic they are to someone with no ongoing digestive/immune issues. ("may be harmful if consumed in excess", you say. Of course they are, that's what excess means. If you suffer no ill effects, it wasn't excess, it was just a lot.)

Today has not been wasted: I have learned something. I don't imagine I'll stop nibbling on the occasional green bean, though.

Comments

[sammason.livejournal.com]

So did you nibble on one of these pods? If they're hotter'n a pepper sprout, I hope it was just a small nibble.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thus far I have only eaten them cooked. I'll nibble a raw one tonight and get back to you :-)

They're not hot at all, that was just a line from a song that's stuck in my head today!

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Phew! I wouldn't like you to burn your gob. Perhaps the beans are like this http://www.thompson-morgan.com/vegetables/vegetable-seeds/pea-and-bean-seeds/dwarf-bean-boston/583TM

The warning 'do not eat raw' might be one of those daft overstatements about safety, like 'don't let your kids eat all this salt at once!' Those of us who really do find raw beans undigestible (IBS) have probably found out already, the hard way.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I ate beans, and now I have a terrible cold. Dangerous things these beans, it turns out!

[sammason.livejournal.com]

Sounds about as logical as most health scares, eg the one about MMR and autism. Joking apart, I'm sorry about your cold. Hope you take good care of yourself and get well soon.

[doyoucopy.livejournal.com]

Well I learned something new too. It's like one of those facts that I can surprise people with at dinner parties.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

Now, to me, that song will always be by Nancy Sinatra and Lee Hazlewood, but I understand other singers are available.

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Hmmm - it depends on the maturity of the beans inside as to whether I'll eat them raw, steamed, or boil the seeds to death before eating.

I'm not amazing at remembering which beans are poisonous unless cooked either. Kidney beans are, but not all beans are so terribly toxic is about my limit of remembering.

I actually wonder if you (person with no digestive issues) would be more likely to get poisoned than me (person with IBS). I'm not kidding - unlike the more serious IBD, IBS is non-inflamed, non-damaged gut that quickly repels potentially toxic things with no lasting ill effect. It has its benefits: last time I got food poisoning was 3 weeks before finals (and everyone else that ate that kebab van garlic mayo got really very, very ill), and I eat a lot of risky food in a lot of risky countries. Last time I got a tummy bug, I was in primary school.

[venta.livejournal.com]

In my world, kidney beans are either tinned (so cooked already) or dried (so unpalatable without cooking). I know various kinds of beans are poisonous, but had always thought it was only those sorts. I've a real tendency to nibble raw vegetables when chopping/peeling them, and have always lumped fresh uncooked beans of all kinds in the nibblables.

Possibly veering into TMI territory here... but I assume[*] that the symptoms of eating an excess of raw green beans might be a mild stomach upset. I'm not sure how that differs from IBS "repelling potentially toxic things" - or, rather, I'm not sure how you'd distinguish the symptoms!

My digestive system is extremely good at repelling things, but in my case it's stress-related and nothing to do with the actual food I've eaten. Except for drugs with "upset stomach" as a side-effect, where I will always get the side effect. Actual proper tummy bugs are pretty rare, though.

[*} Wikipedia says "may lead to diarrhoea, nausea, bloating, vomiting, even death" for lectin posioning. I haven't managed to find anything online that actually tells me any detail about what might happen with green beans specifically. People like this (http://healthyeating.sfgate.com/benefits-eating-raw-green-beans-5207.html) advocate eating raw beans as a health thing without ever mentioning that they're toxic, and there's plenty of anecdotal threads where people are saying "don't be ridiculous, I eat raw green beans all the time and I'm fine, of course they're not toxic". Although "contains a toxin" and "are toxic" are of course two different things.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

TMI warning!

Sometimes my IBS stops everything working for a while and it just sits there. I'm not sure I want to do[*] the experiment myself but I would be curious as to what happens with that plus toxic things!

*=definitely don't want to do ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

You're so selfish, this is For Science!

;)

(One of the problems with IBS does seem to be that it's one of those conditions where you roll a few dice to get your own particular set of symptoms. So people say "sufferers of IBS do/have/are X", but there'll be plenty for whom that's not the case.)

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Should circumstances conspire to give me the relevant experimental conditions, I'll let you know the results!

[beckyc.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, fair point, should have limited that to IBS-D. Though for IBS-C, I guess it depends how dominant that aspect is eg if things like 6 cups of strong black coffee have any effect. If not, I really wouldn't be eating toxic things!

[bopeepsheep.livejournal.com]

I, um, know this one. It makes you run a fever and feel like you have appendicitis for a while, and then you either get "paradoxical" D or copious V. Or both if you're really lucky. And depending on how effective that is at dealing with the toxic stuff, you either then feel a lot better straight away or ... you don't. :(