Beans are part of a healthy balanced diet, generally underappreciated, yet grown by humans for millennia, far back into prehistory. Beans are culturally central all over the world and grown in over 150 countries. They are easy to grow, require low amounts of water, store well, are economical, go well with other foods, and are versatile. When cooked, one pound (two cups) of dry beans yields six cups of highly nutritious, protein rich food. Beans are essential to any food security plan, whether personal or national. Over 40,000 varieties are known and stored in seed banks. Just a few are commercially cultivated today. Their ecological benefit, when grown without toxic chemicals, is powerful. They take nitrogen from the air to make protein and fix nitrogen into the soil for use by other crops which makes them ideal in crop rotations.
A recent book, The Power of Pulses – Saving the World with Peas, Beans, Chickpeas, Favas, and Lentils proclaims beans to be the food of the future, capable of providing food security as climates shift and change. On top of widely known health benefits of beans, Dr. Joan Sabaté professor in Nutrition at Loma Linda University, reported at the International Congress of Vegetarian Nutrition (ICVN) in 2018 that simply reducing the consumption of beef and substituting beans would significantly reduce people’s environmental footprint worldwide by reducing greenhouse gas. Beans are a reliable organic crop, and useful in transitioning from chemical farming to organic, rejuvenative production. Unitarian Service Committee Canada maintains that switching from toxic chemical-based methods to sustainable farming can increase crop yield up to 79 percent, which is compelling by any measure.
Decades of Real Organic
Eden Foods has been encouraging organic bean farming since the 1960s. EDEN Beans are USA authentic organically grown, purchased directly from American families Eden knows and trusts. Eden Foods’ network of salt-of-the-earth farmers have been using organic methods for decades. Rich, vital organic soil teems with life and their practiced tending produces the best beans on earth. Most Eden beans are grown in the Midwest relatively near Eden’s HQ. Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) and lentils require more arid climates of California, Arizona, Colorado, and North Dakota to grow.
Eden visited the first member of this grower network in Spring 1971. Standing in Mr. Ernie Fordos’s field with him he shared that three years earlier he and is dad where there in the same place and they observed that all the earthworms were gone, the result of following government and university suggestions for chemical agricultural practices. Ernie and his dad decided, then and there, “… to manage their farms so that the earthworms would come back.” After doing so since, the earthworms had made a strong comeback.
Today, Ernie’s sons and grandsons grow organic field crops for Eden Foods.
When visiting with bean growers last year, we were repeatedly told that only Eden Foods visits them, and we do so regularly. “No other company does this,” they said. Eden has been visiting its farmers and farms steadily for nearly 50 years. In Eden Foods’ experience, only in making regular farm visits do we gain insight into what is motivating the farmer, and understanding that is a basic essential intangible in determining a grower’s reliability.
Almost the Perfect Food
EDEN Beans, from soil organically managed for decades, taste much better and are a more valuable nourishment source that includes antioxidant flavonoid anthocyanins and polyphenols, as well as minerals and vitamins. Their amino acids lysine and tryptophan provide complete protein when taken with whole grain that lack them. High-quality soluble fiber helps regulate blood sugar and lower cholesterol. The insoluble fiber helps prevent intestinal disorder, control appetite, and assist in weight management. “Beans are probably the best human plant food there is,” plant geneticist George L. Hosfield, Ph.D., told Reuters Health. “With the additional bonus of their antioxidants, you have almost the perfect food.” He explains that beans are full of high-quality protein and fiber, low in fat, and contain important vitamins and minerals such as calcium, folic acid, iron, potassium, magnesium, and zinc. Their complex carbohydrates provide steady energy. A variety of beans and whole grain is a powerful step toward a better quality of life.
Expertly Prepared
Eden became certain that convenient precooked organic beans would be appreciated, so the canning of EDEN Beans began in 1991 at our certified organic, kosher cannery in east central Indiana. They are prepared in ways that were developed in home kitchens. Only purified water is used in washing, soaking, and cooking. The beans are soaked overnight, an important but rare step in the industry, making them tastier and easier to digest. Many are cooked with a bit of kombu sea vegetable. The kombu is tasteless and simply enhances flavors with its amino acid and trace mineral richness, without the need for sodium. Where added, only organic, non-irradiated herbs and spices are used. Every ingredient is always dutifully declared on the label.
In preparing to make EDEN Beans, Eden Foods was told it was necessary to add at least two chemicals: calcium chloride to harden the skin so they wouldn’t fall apart in cooking and calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA) to hold the color. These chemicals are present in virtually all other canned beans. EDEN Beans are prepared without these chemicals, using only pure water, and they come out perfectly. Due to the vital, organic soil growing EDEN Beans, their higher mineral content allows them to be cooked without the need of these extremely undesirable processing chemicals. Since April 1999, all canned EDEN Beans come in custom-lined cans that do not contain the endocrine disrupters BPA, BPS, or phthalates. Most are gluten free, and all are Non-GMO verified.
Versatile and Delicious
Good food is very rewarding. Organic EDEN Beans are a versatile delicious, nutritious, and deeply satisfying food. Use them in soups, stews, casseroles, salads, dips, sandwich spreads, and Mexican classics such as tacos, enchiladas, tamale pie, burritos, chalupas, salsa, and botana. For oodles of free recipes visit edenfoods.com/recipes.
