· Add a spoonful of chickpeas onto your lunch salad, or chomp on dried ones for snacks
· Dollop a spoonful of hummus onto your bread,salad or vegetables
· Open a can of baked beans for a quick lunch, snack or dinner. Yes they have a little salt and sugar but not anything to worry about, certainly if they are replacing take away
· Serve green peas, yes the including the frozen kind, as one of your night time vegetables
· Try edamame beans as a snack (watch the salt of some prepacked varieties), they are foten sserved in Japanese restaurants as a starter
· Make a vegetables and lentil curry
· Add a can of kidney beans to Shepherd’s pie, chilli con carne or a pasta sauce
· Try my red lentil, carrot and sweet potato recipe below
You can still eat legumes if you are following a low FODMAP diet- fermentable carbohydrates that can give some people gut pain. The trick is to use canned varieties and rinse them numerous times or if soaking change the water frequently to wash away some of those fermentable carbohydrates.
It is also about serving size. Start small and work up, finding your own tolerance level. For example canned lentils ½ cup serve is considered low FODMAP and for chickpeas and butter beans ¼ cup is low FODMAP. If you cut them out altogether you are reducing an important food source(fermentable carbohydrates and fibres) to your gut bacteria.
Lentils area wonderful nutritionally rich food providing plant based protein, folate, phosphorus, fibre and iron, with soluble fibre to help reduce cholesterol and control blood glucose levels. Try this red lentil soup recipe and have your family on the way to good health, living longer with legumes!
Serves 6
Ingredients:
250g red split lentils, rinsed
1 large onion
1 tbs garlic infused olive oil (or extra virgin olive oil and 2 garlic cloves)
2 litres hot water
1 beef stock cube (or homemade stock)
500g sweet potato chopped into medium pieces
500g carrot, chopped into medium pieces
200g potato, chopped into medium pieces
1 teaspoon chilli flakes or 1 fresh chilli
Freshly ground black pepper, pinch of salt
Directions:
Place extra virgin olive oil and sliced onion into a pot and sautee until softened
Add hot water, stock cube, carrot, sweet potato, potato and red lentils. Al ingredients should be covered by water. Cover and simmer for around 40 minutes until soft.
Add chilli flakes, black pepper and salt.
Blend until smooth. Garnish with fresh basil, coriander or oregano if desired.
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