Broad beans on toast

Broad beans on toast would be called an antipasta in Italy; high in vegetable protein, with added chopped boiled-egg or cheese, it makes a very satisfying dish.

If you really want to be posh, call it a bruschetta which just means on burned-toast.

My favourite in fact is placing our broad beans on pan-fried toast made from sourdough-bread.

They are also known as fava-beans, and "tuinbonen" in Holland.

You can turn this into a top-notch dish with broad beans from your garden and real bread made with 100% wholemeal flour; both are difficult to find in the shops so the chances are you will be making your bruschetta just like everyone else. So here's the basic recipe.

Keep it simple Stupid

Which of the top three forms of broad beans are you going to use?

1. If you remove first the shell and then the husk which together contain most of the fibre, it will mean they are processed, and is the reason why it is reported that the glycemic index of fava beans is very high. It also means a lot more time to prepare.
2. Half the nutrients in citrus are found in the pulp. Using only the juice discards much of the vitamin-C, limonin and other phytochemicals; and yet more of the fibre too.
3. Using the grill instead of the toaster takes much longer and wastes electricity; it contributes in some small but cumulative way to yet more greenhouse-gases.
   
4. Brushing the toast first with olive oil and then with the cut garlic is tiresome, time-consuming and wastes much of the nutrition in the rest of the clove.
   

Keep it simple, Stupid; our slogan is slow food, made fast. Saving you time and money is all part of the Cyan Zone philosophy.

Let your food be your medicine

And now for the better way to make your broad-beans on toast.

Unfortunately your supermarket loaf will never qualify as medicine; even most so-called wholemeal artisan bread is made from refined flour. And broad beans picked when too mature become hard and starchy; that is why most cooks first pod them, and then pop them to remove the skin.

Once you understand how net carbs work you will no longer want to skin your beans and eat white-toast; it's that fibre that stop us from becoming obese and diabetic.

Remember that more than half of the L-dopa in broad beans is to be found in the young pods. That's the stuff that gives them their magic satiety factor.

So if you want food to be your medicine, growing broad beans and baking your own artisan bread is the way to go. Both will improve your well-being in leaps and bounds; more about that below.

Broad bean pods and shells

Just as we humans like to remove most of the bran and germ from our wheat before baking, so it slides deliciously down the throat, most recipes recommend you discard both the pod and the bean husk. That is why they are listed as having a high glycemic-index; it then becomes in fact refined.

The tender young pods contain important nutrients and together with the husk of the bean have invaluable fibre that lowers the GI and provide vital prebiotics for the teeming billions of bugs in the colon.

It takes a little time to retrain the tongue and lips; ultimately we have to accept that whole foods are chewy.

Nutritionally speaking we live in a mad world that would have you remove the most important parts of your wheat and beans, discard them and then separately purchase them in capsules at great expense.

To get the very best from your flour, we recommend purchasing a small mill and baking your own artisan bread; you can then have the very best loaf in the whole world, with all the finest nutrients and far superior taste for under a dollar. Dinkum, I do it every day.

Oh and if you are gluten intolerant you will find that by adding a sourdough-starter, your problems with a grumbling belly will be a matter of the past.

Alas you are most unlikely to find young broad-bean pods in the shops. You have to grow them yourself.

Time

Well-being that will take you to stunning eighties and nineties with little or no medication, all your marbles and joints intact takes time and some planning.

If the thought of spending five-minutes every morning milling the 100% flour for the best tasting bread in the world, and some time in the garden growing your own broad beans is just too much, then alas you must go your own way.

At our green home broad bean season means we can put up enough vegetable protein for the whole year.

Spending time in the garden is our way of what is known as forest bathing; savouring the senses as you plant and nurture your food; harvesting the mellow fruitful completes the blissful journey.

Those who enjoy life this way have little need for gyms for exercise or psychiatrists for anxiety and stress; or doctors for their medicines either.

Broad beans on toast

Broad beans on toast make a wholesome meal in ten or fifteen-minutes.

We add just a little turmeric to many dishes; it gives a little distinctive flavour whilst contributing to the fight against many serious diseases. Simply the existence of anti-inflammatory compounds that inhibit the nasty COX 2 enzyme is sufficient reason; that causes pain and swelling in joints and has been linked to colon tumours^[1].

"Luis had made her eat a particular kind of dried-ham at lunch with broad beans called habas which he said the Moors had loved."

- A Spanish Lover by Joanna Trollope.

Ketogenic diets

Made the usual way with broad-beans deprived of their pods and commercial bread you are likely to find the top recipe above will raise your blood glucose; it is fattening. So those advocating one of the many ketogenic diets will absolutely forbid meals like this.

Broad beans on toast made our way is central to all five of the blue zones where longevity is the norm. The way I see it is that we either take the time to grow and prepare wholesome foods, and accept that they are rather more coarse because of the fibre, or be prepared that medication and an early demise will most likely be our lot.

• Whole foods are chewy
  

We live and die by the choices we make. I simply cannot abide by the thought that I must be constantly counting calories on this or that diet. Give me rather broad beans on toast made our way.

According to Obesity Reviews 42% of adults are worldwide trying to lose weight^[2]. Join those who bake their own wholemeal bread and grow broad beans; you can be assured you'll never again have to go on another diet.

Meals do take longer to eat. Strangely scientists have found that those who chew their food thoroughly are less likely to lose their marbles.

Learning how to plant broad-beans is what enabled me to control the tremor in my right hand. It's all about dopamine, the happy hormone.

Freezing broad beans makes them available all year round.

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