How to make beans and lentils easier to digest — Nourish & Thrive (2024)

Beans, lentils and other pulses are great foods to support your gut health. They’re cheap sources of fibre and protein- sounds great right? The issue is that beans and lentils can cause digestive symptoms in some people, meaning they’re often avoided by those with gut health issues.

But don’t worry, if you find that beans and lentils are hard to digest, there are things you can do to make them more gentle on your digestive system! Many of these tips are nothing new- techniques like soaking and sprouting have been practiced in different cultures across the world for centuries to improve the digestion of beans and lentils.

Tips to make beans and lentils easier to digest:

1. Soak before cooking

2. Use a pressure cooker

3. Cook with okra

4. Try sprouting them

5. Rinse tinned beans thoroughly
   

1. Soak before cooking

Soaking beans and lentils not only can help to improve their texture and reduce cooking time, but is also a crucial way to reduce the likelihood of them causing digestive symptoms. Soaking them reduces gas-causing compounds such as oligosaccharides as many of them leach out and are discarded in the soaking water. Less gas-causing oligosaccharides = less gas and bloating which is a big win if you ask me! Soaking also reduces the amount of anti-nutrients such as lectins, which you can read more about below.

2. Use a pressure cooker

Using a pressure cooker helps to break down substances called lectins that are found in beans and lentils. Lectins are a type of protein that can bind to the cells in your gut wall and may cause irritation. Symptoms caused by lectins can include digestive discomfort, gas and bloating. In extreme cases, high amounts of lectins can even cause food poisoning-like symptoms such as nausea, vomiting and diarrhoea. It’s thought that some people are more sensitive to the effect of lectins than others.

The high pressure created whilst using a pressure cooker breaks down the lectin protein structure, meaning that the lectins can no longer bind to the gut wall. Most beans and lentils can be prepared in a pressure cooker quickly and easily- the high pressure massively speeds up cooking time too! However red lentils tend not to be suitable for pressure cooking, as they can get mushy very quickly under the high pressure and temperature, so choose other types of lentils or beans instead.

It’s worth noting that soaking and boiling beans and lentils can also reduce their lectin content, but not to the same extent that pressure cooking does.

3. Cook with Okra

Okra (also known as ladies’ fingers) is a small green vegetable that is widely used in Caribbean and Indian cuisine. Okra is rich in a specific type of polysaccharide starch which has been shown to bind to lectins, deactivating them. This means that adding some okra to your bean or lentil dishes may help to minimise some of the digestive discomfort that can sometimes be associated with beans and lentils.

Okra is not always widely available in supermarkets in the UK and US, but can often be found in larger stores, and is often available as frozen rather than fresh. It can also typically be found at shops that specialise in Caribbean or Indian produce.

4. Try sprouting them

When sprouting beans and lentils, the germination process starts, changing their composition. This helps to break down some of the gas-causing compounds (oligosaccharides ) and anti-nutrients (phytic acid and lectins). Therefore, consuming sprouted beans and lentils may help to reduce symptoms such as bloating and gas.

5. Rinse tinned beans and lentils thoroughly

Have you ever noticed that the liquid in a tin of beans is thick and almost gloopy, and goes foamy when you rinse it off? That’s due to good ol’ oligosaccharides and lectins which, if you’ve been reading the rest of the article you’ll know can cause gas, bloating and digestive discomfort. By rinsing thoroughly you can help to minimise these potential effects.