Runner beans

[watervole]

 I only used to eat runner beans when cooked, but many years ago now, I observed my mother-in-law's tortoise eating raw runner beans with great enthusiasm.   So I tried one and found that I liked it.

Oswin does too.  Really likes them.  Can eat several in a day.

Today, she was eating a slice of cake.  Grandad came in with fresh supply of runner beans from the allotment and gave her half of a runner bean.

She took it with great delight, ate it at once, and only then went back to the cake.

I love a three year old who appreciates allotment veg!

Comments

[ratcreature]

Browsing my via network...

Beans contain toxic lectins though that are only destroyed through heat. Which is why beans are usually recommended to be only eaten cooked. Iirc in green and runner beans it is not enough to be that bad for humans to eat some raw (whereas kidney beans for example have high levels), but it is one of these plants substances they grow to discourage getting eaten.

[watervole]

The dangerous ones are indeed red kidney beans. (I always soak and cook those thoroughly)

Lots of people,including myself, eat raw runner beans without problems.

When plants have defensive substances, they will usually give a bitter taste as a warning.

[ratcreature]

Well, if they agree with you raw. As usual it's probably a matter of dosage. My mom was just very insistent to eat all beans only cooked, and never snack on them when we prepared the fresh ones together, like we did with fresh peas, so that's what I'm used to doing. And the Wikipedia page for runner beans says you should cook them too so it's not just my mom's old wife's tale.

[watervole]

Are we looking at different wikipedia pages? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phaseolus_coccineus

says nothing about it.

[ratcreature]

Well, I looked at the German wikipedia, but this one also says the same? It says in the "Description" section, the last sentence: "
Runner beans, like all beans, contain the toxic protein phytohaemagglutinin and thus should be cooked well before eating."

[kerravonsen]

(grin)
It probably helps that it's fresh off the vine (runner beans are on vines, aren't they?)

[watervole]

Yes, they are climbing plants, with very pretty flowers.

[vilakins]

I always ate runner beans, peas, and carrots raw as a kid, and still do by preference.

[watervole]

I love raw mangetout peas, and often eat carrots raw as well.

[dumain.com]

Carrots are great raw. Cooking them just seems to drive out the taste.

[watervole]

Agreed. (BTW,just found Space Janitors from your You Tube subscriptions - looks like fun)

[dumain.com]

Well if you would like carrots (purple ones) in your sf a couple of the stories in Disturbed Universes, which I'm reading at the moment, feature them.