At Jeew’s Kitchen, we encourage the use legume as a main ingredient often! Whilst legumes could be very nutritious, it has proven to be such a palatable one too over the culinary adventures of the past year at our kitchen!
Where we become unique in using legumes are when we serve / mix them with regular curries and popular day-today dishes. It was rather disheartening how unfair we have treated legumes in our customary eating practices by only complementing with coconut scrape and Lunu Miris! My rice challenge has inspired few so far; all I say it to try two consecutive rice meals only with coconut scrape and lunu miris.. Give a shy if you doubt!
Now legumes are indispensable with JK, here are some important facts. Hopefully they will further improve your impression of this super ingredient!
- With a low glycemic index, low fat and high fiber content, legumes are suitable for people with diabetes and many non-communicable diseases.
- May reduce the risks of coronary heart disease (Heart attacks)
- Legumes are good sources of vitamins
- High iron content makes them a potent food for preventing iron deficiency anemia in women and children especially when combined with food containing vitamin C to improve iron absorption
- Protein quality matters, particularly for growth and development. The protein quality of vegetarian diets and plant-based diets is significantly improved when legumes are eaten together with cereals.
- Legumes are rich in bioactive compounds such as phytochemicals and antioxidants that may contain anti-cancer properties.
Above are few from the endless list of health benefits of legumes. Besides that, ain’t is just fun to experiment with them?
As always, legumes rock. Happy and healthy cooking fans..
Reference : Fact sheet – Nutritional benefits of pulses – FAO (2016)
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