Cooking conditions to get the most out of your pulses

Are you looking to add more protein to your diet? How about more fibre or iron? Then Dr. Elsayed Abdelaal suggests you increase your consumption of pulses.

Pulses are a family of crops that include beans, peas, lentils, and chickpeas. Despite being rich in protein, fibre, iron, and other healthy nutrients, Canadian diets are light on pulses. As a result, most of the pulses grown in Canada – and we grow a lot – are exported.

To increase Canadian consumption of beans, lentils, and peas, Dr. Abdelaal swapped his lab coat for an apron and got cooking at the Guelph Research and Development Centre where he works as a research scientist for Agriculture and AgriFood Canada (AAFC).

"Pulses can be a major component of the human diet. They contain a lot of healthy attributes that include bioactive compounds, non-gluten protein, and a high amount of slowly digestible starch. My research explores how cooking conditions of pulses could affect the nutritional quality and make them even healthier," explained Abdelaal, Research scientist, Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada.

Working with a team of researchers, he tested how the different bioactive components (example, polyphenols) and anti-nutritional qualities (that is the elements that prevent nutrient absorption) of pulses are impacted when they are cooked in a microwave, a slow cooker, a pressure cooker and a traditional pot. Bioactive and antinutritional factors have been associated with nutrient absorption, disease prevention, and an overall healthy diet.

In addition to cooking methods, Dr. Abdelaal and his team looked at how different cooking liquids affected the pulses. They tested cooking in water, a salty solution, a sweet solution, and an acidic solution.What they found is that slowcooking is most effective at maintaining the bioactive components and minimizing the anti-nutritional ones; especially when combined with a salty cooking solution (water with approximately 0.5% – 1% salt or about a teaspoon per litre of water).

Dr. Abdelaal explains that the salty solu- tion heats up faster than water and facilitates the movement of harmful elements (such as enzyme inhibitors and gas-producing compounds) out of the seed. While the process still takes time, the salt in the solution makes a slow process a little quicker.

Another key characteristic of high-quality pulses (especially canned/processed pulses) is measured by firmness or texture. The sodium solution is preferable because it improves firmness of the cooked seeds, unlike the sugary and acidic solutions, which can make the beans mushy or harder.

"It's all interrelated," he says. "A high quality product improves the nutritional aspects but also should be attractive for consumption."

He says that by understanding what makes a high quality pulse for processing ( typically either canning or roasting), more producers and processors will be able to stock grocery shelves with better products to boost consumption.

With this research, in partnership with Saskatchewan Pulse Growers, Dr. Abdelaal believes more Canadians could benefit from increasing or introducing pulses to their diets and getting the best nutrition from the change.

"When you have a high quality product, people will eat it. And Canadian pulses are top quality."

Key discoveries (benefits)

• Pulses contain nutrients that are key for a healthy diet;

• Slow cooking pulses in a salty solution helps to enhance those nutrients;

•Canadians have relatively low pulse consumption in spite of the fact that they are one of Canada's main exports.