Despite the decline in recent years of the average diet due to overabundant fast food, sweets and preservatives, many are now seeking to reverse the trend and keep themselves healthier with wholesome, more balanced diets. Organic foods are an ever growing market as a result, offering the same foods people are used to while promising less of the chemical additives and deleterious effects they bring with them.
Organic beef, chicken and other meats are raised in more natural conditions rather than the veritable livestock factories created by large scale manufacturers. Many health conscious consumers are avoiding meat altogether, though, preferring to stick with a strictly vegetarian (or even vegan) diet for the benefits of lowered cholesterol and risk of heart disease they convey.
While maintaining a vegetarian diet is commendable and one of the best health preserving decisions one can make, no man or woman can subsist on carrots and celery alone. Vegetarian diets require the same planning, if not more, as a well balanced omnivorous diet to accommodate the lack of nutrients that meats have historically provided for humans. Primary amongst these nutrient losses are iron and proteins as meat is the most widely available and convenient source, but thankfully for vegetarians, it is not the only such source.
Spinach is a fast candidate for quick iron boosts but leaves the protein deficit unaffected. This results in many uninformed vegetarians running into malnutrition problems as their systems are devoid of essential amino acids that these proteins provide during the digestion and metabolic cycle leading to a number of nasty effects ranging from inactivity and digestion issues to swollen liver and abdominal edema.
There is, of course, a solution to this dilemma far simpler than taking supplements, beans. Regardless of variety, from northern to baked, beans provide the protein intake essential to whole body well being. The problem with this isolated source of protein for many lies not in any nutritional caveat, but in how to spice up dishes with a variety of vegetarian bean recipes to avoid the boring, same meal every night.
The very same company that supplies many stores with their stock of the nutritious legume also provides a collection of vegetarian bean recipes on their website to rival all but the most specialized of cookbooks, from soups and salad toppings to pies and casseroles, the site’s worth a view for health nuts and bean aficionados alike.