The pursuit of happiness has spawned some crazy, bad, and downright silly ideas over the years.
Practicing yoga with goats. Soaking in huge tubs of ice-cold water. Eating only purple foods. Meditating upside down. Microdosing on magic mushrooms.
In fact, it seems like we try just about anything to banish the blues and add a little energy and enthusiasm to our daily lives.
The latest happiness craze comes in the form of the humble broad bean – Vicia faba – with a long list of health benefits that puts even spinach to shame.
For starters, it’s packed with protein, fiber, iron, and vitamin C. It’s also good for bone health, as it fights hypertension and anemia. Plus, it can help lower cholesterol, boost immunity, and aid in weight loss.
The latest happiness craze is being touted as the humble broad bean, Vicia faba, with a long list of health benefits that puts even spinach to shame.
But academics say that’s a small thing compared to the impact that beans (ideally with the skin) can have on our emotional wellbeing.
But academics say that’s a small thing compared to the impact that beans (ideally with the skin) can have on our emotional wellbeing.
This is due to its exceptionally high levels of levodopa, or L-dopa, a natural chemical used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease but also linked to long-term improvements in mood, emotions and, in particular, happiness levels.
According to Dr Nadia Mohd-Radzman, a researcher and botanist at the University of Cambridge who also works at the Entrepreneurship Lab at King’s College Cambridge, it even helps improve a condition called anhedonia – the inability to feel or experience pleasure.
And it’s so effective that she insists that if we ate more beans, they could completely transform the health and happiness of the nation.
“That’s my mission,” he said in a recent interview. “To get the country to love broad beans.”
And to this end it is doing everything it can to promote consumption of the great British bean: by improving its varieties, suggesting tempting recipes and organising a series of conferences on them.
It’s an impressive and bold plan, but Dr. Mohd-Radzman has a lot of work ahead of her.
Because broad beans, originally from the Middle East but cultivated in Britain since the Iron Age, are not universally appreciated.
In fact, while some of us adore them—skin or no—and get super excited when they’re in season, most people seem to hate them.
According to my (admittedly rough) survey, at least two in three British adults and most children seem to dislike the taste, the texture, the shape, the rubbery skin, pretty much everything about them.
Some say they taste like wool, others don’t like the mouthfeel. Many people have very strong opinions on whether they should be peeled or not.
Some take it even further. In her book The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours (Bloomsbury), Niki Segnit classifies them as “half-vegetable, half-mammal” for their “darkly bloody, offal-like and slightly cheesy” flavour.
Meanwhile, on Mumsnet there are endless lively discussion threads dismissing beans as “bitter”, “nasty”, “rubbery”, “really disgusting” and, most alarmingly, “looking and tasting like dead fingertips”.
Broad beans are packed with protein, fiber, iron and vitamin C.
Broad beans are also good for bone health, combat high blood pressure and anemia. They can also help lower cholesterol, boost immunity and aid in weight loss.
It may seem a bit extreme, but we’re not the first to hate them. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, ordered his followers not to eat them because of their supposed resemblance to a fetus. He said that doing so would be like consuming human flesh.
So it is perhaps not surprising to learn that while British farmers harvest around 740,000 tonnes of broad beans each year, we eat only a fraction. Most are used as animal feed or exported to Egypt, where they are used to make falafel as an alternative to chickpeas.
Which seems a shame.
And not least because it is an efficient, sustainable and highly nutritious crop that our farmers know how to grow very well.
But most importantly, according to Dr. Mohd-Radzman, if we ate more beans, we would all feel more cheerful and embrace life with more energy and a smile on our faces.
And she is not the only one asking us to rethink our relationship with beans.
A team of scientists at the University of Reading recently proposed that Britons should switch to bread made from beans, which they claim would be healthier than wheat bread, have an “improved nutritional profile” and be better for the environment.
Others have praised the bean milk, an interesting idea, but perhaps not a good idea to order in a cappuccino.
Broad beans also have another unusual benefit, although this one is strictly “non-nutritional.” Researchers at Iran’s Mashhad University recently discovered that they can also slow hair growth “without significant side effects.”
For her study, a cream containing 20 percent fava bean content was applied to the armpits of 25 women twice a day for three months. This reduced the amount and thickness of hair without “significant side effects.”
Once again, it’s L-dopa that works its magic: the body converts it into dopamine, which constricts blood vessels that stimulate hair growth.
Fava beans should be handled with care, however, as it was not only Pythagoras who shunned them. A very small number of people in the Middle East and the Mediterranean are prone to developing a rare blood disorder, haemolytic anaemia, from eating fava beans.
But Dr. Mohd-Radzman has a solution. She says farmers could grow bean varieties with low levels of the triggering chemicals, and notes that scientists are also working on creating genetically modified beans without any of them.
All in all, a wonderful food that rivals all others. I wish we could convince more than a handful of us to eat it. Maybe the delicious recipes above will change your mind…
