Beans & Legumes

Legumes, beans and lentils are all good source of protein. They are low in fat and high in fiber. I had always thought that legumes and beans are essentially the same until I read up a little bit more about them. This is what I found out:

Legume is a plant and the fruit (commonly known as pod) is a simple dry fruit which develops from a simple carpel and usually opens along a seam on two sides. Well known legumes include peas, beans, lentil, soy, and peanuts. (Source: Wikipedia)

That means, beans and lentils are subsets of legumes. It was a bag of mixed beans I bought a few weeks ago that sparked my interest to find out the various names of beans in the bag. The bag contains 7 types of legumes and 1 type of grain - barley. Although legumes are packed with dietary benefits, they are gassy food which give people embarrassing smelly gas (that's why you fart a lot more after eating beans). But fret not, there are ways to remove gas from the beans before cooking. Most websites from google search results  suggest that by soaking beans in the water for 12 hours and boiling them for 15 minutes will reduce the gas.