Dry Garbanzo Beans

For centuries, legumes or dry beans, as they are commonly called, were a staple in Mediterranean countries where they have played an important role in the fight against heart disease.

Why? Because ...

- Legumes contain essential vitamins and minerals like iron, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc, potassium, folic acid, and some B-complex vitamins.

- They are low in fat and sodium, which makes an ideal food to keep high cholesterol and high blood pressure remotely.

- Legumes are also rich in soluble fiber, the kind that lowers cholesterol.

- They can help balance your budget because they are very cheap.

As you can see, the beans are almost perfect food.

In recent years, research has paid much attention to the link between regular consumption of legumes and a lower incidence of cardiac disease. Studies have shown that people who eat dry beans regularly have a lower risk of heart attacks than those who barely eat.

One study examined the relationship between soluble fiber intake and risk of heart disease in 9632 men and women over 19 years. It showed that consuming legumes four times or more per week compared to less than once a week reduces the risk of heart disease by 22 percent1

How food legumes can help reduce your risk of heart disease?

1. Beans contain high amounts of soluble fiber

 

The fiber is what gives plants structure. A is found in fruits, vegetables, legumes, nuts and seeds, and whole grains. It is the part of plants that our system can not break, because it lacks the appropriate mechanisms to do so. Therefore, our cells have very little use for the fibers. Fiber can be soluble and insoluble, and most plant foods contain a combination of both.

Soluble fiber means that the fiber dissolves in water to form a gelatinous paste with other foods in the intestine. This feature is very important because it reduces the amount of cholesterol circulating in the blood. Soluble fiber not only lowers LDL cholesterol, the "bad" type, but it also raises HDL cholesterol, the "good" type.

Insoluble fiber has no effect on cholesterol but it is very beneficial to our whole body, because it acts as a natural laxative

2. Dry beans help remove cholesterol from your system.

Bile, produced by the liver, is a substance necessary to break down the fat we consume in food. To produce bile, the liver, cholesterol enters the blood, it turns into bile and sends it to the gallbladder, where it is stored until needed. Then, when we eat, the gallbladder sends the bile into the intestine to help break down the fat food. Once the bile has done its job in the intestines, one of two things may occur:

- If the meal has enough soluble fiber, the fiber enters the bile and it leaves the body through the feces. Once the bile is eliminated, the liver responds by drawing more cholesterol in the blood to make new bile. The result is less cholesterol circulating in our system.

- If the meal does not have enough soluble fiber, the bile is not taken out of the body. In this case, the liver does not need to draw more cholesterol from the blood to produce more bile because there are many in the system. The result is more cholesterol in our blood vessels sailing.

3. Beans prevent the same form of cholesterol

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