Remember this from childhood?
"Baked beans are good for your heart, the more you eat the more you fart, the more you fart the better you feel, so eat baked beans for every meal!"
Chickpea salad, lentil curry, bean burgers, hummus...legumes are so good for us and can be used in a delicious number of ways but many of us are put off due to the 'f' factor. Flatulence is usually linked with a compound in legumes called......wait for it.....oligosaccharides. If you can pronounce that you're a step ahead already! It's a natural type of sugar in the legumes but there's a way of reducing it by approximately 50% to help relieve the gas.
The brief version:
Step 1: Soak dried legumes (chickpeas, beans, lentils etc) in water for 12 hours at room temperature.
Step 2: Rinse the legumes, put them back in the bowl without water, cover with a damp teatowel and leave for another 12 hours or until you can just see the shoot starting to come through (semi-germination).
Step 3: Rinse the legumes again and cook according to the attached instructions or the recipe you're using.
Hint: See the attached instructions for tips on how to make the perfect portions to replace 1 can of bought beans/chickpeas/lentils.
