Healing with Food Article

Green Beans

Accompanying recipe: Green Beans, Boiled and Quinoa and Green Bean Tabbouleh

Green beans are at their prime in the summer—they’re firm yet tender, succulent and flavorful. But, they’re horrible when old and leathery, or overcooked. Here’s bean  basics regarding selecting, storing and cooking them, but first some information about their healing properties.

Energetically speaking, green beans are considered a balancing food for the hot months. Oriental medicine notes that green beans increase yin and so they are regarded as a food tonic for people with anxiety, insomnia, frenetic energy, or feverish, hot symptoms.

One can intuit this yin attribute by comparing yin, immature, fleshy, juicy green beans to yang, fully mature, hard, dry beans that require a long soak and an hour of cooking to soften them.

Green beans are mildly diuretic and therefore considered medicinal for diabetics; they also support the pancreas and kidneys. Fresh beans have ample vitamin A, calcium, potassium, and B-complex vitamins.

At the market, select firm green beans without rust spots. A fresh bean snaps crisply and is velvety to the touch. Pass over beans that are bulging and leathery—they're past prime to enjoy as a green vegetable.

When green beans are fully matured, then shucked and dried, they yield the staple, dried beans. Green bean varieties grown to be eaten as a vegetable are, however, more tender and toothsome than the dried bean varieties.

Vegetables with greater surface area, like green beans and lettuce, age faster than more compact vegetables, like carrots and Brussels sprouts. Understanding how they age helps us preserve their freshness.

Once harvested, plants take in oxygen and this triggers their metabolic breakdown. (Growing plants do the opposite; they take in carbon dioxide and give up oxygen.) To limit vegetables' oxygen supply—especially fast respirators with greater surface area like green beans—wrap them tightly in plastic. Additionally, store them in a chilled, humid atmosphere and plan to use them quickly.

Unlike your green beans from childhood, today we have an increasing variety of fresh green beans to choose from. While they're typically green in color, they may also be yellow or purple.

Heirloom, or old fashioned, bean varieties have a long fibrous string that runs the length of their seam. These strings must be hand removed prior to cooking. This string gave rise to their alternate name, string beans. Modern cultivars are stringless and therefore easier to prepare.

Another common name, French bean, is misleading because our common green bean varieties originated in Latin America. Other legumes eaten in their immature pod sage include edamame (soy beans) and yard long beans from Asia and peas from Eurasia.

Whatever you name green beans, I hope you enjoy them frequently in the summer when they're at their peak. When they're seasonal and regional, there's nothing as tasty as boiled beans. See accompanying recipes for Basic Green Beans and also for a Tabbouleh variation with green beans.

May you be well nourished,

Rebecca Wood