Power Food

Love That Lowly Lima

Rediscovering this familiar food as a nutritional treasure? That’s using the old bean!

Quick—what’s your favorite bean? Chances are you didn’t cite the well-known lima bean, a flattish, pale green- or beige-skinned natural package familiar to most of us from our old “eat your veggies” days. It’s what your kid’s furtive fork nudges across the plate in search of an inconspicuous hiding place. It’s the consolation prize in a spoonful of succotash.

An old favorite? Well, it’s old. The somewhat waxy-tasting, creamy-textured lima (officially called Phaseolus lunatus, it’s a legume like the garbanzo, alias the chickpea) was cultivated in the Andes around 2,000 B.C. and may have been the first plant farmers grew there on purpose. It gets its name from Lima, Peru, whence it was exported to Europe centuries ago. Yet while Brussels sprouts and Brazil nuts proudly bear the capitalized names of their eponymous places, this humble bean has a different pronunciation (lie-muh, while the city is Lee-muh) and is plain old small-l lima.

But wait! This bland bean has hundreds of tasty culinary applications. And have you looked up its nutritional profile lately? You’ll find that in terms of health benefits, its tight skin might as well be a Superman suit.

POWER UP:

A good source of healthy complex carbohydrates, lima beans are rich in protein (a bit more than other beans), and also boast lots of fiber—of two kinds. Their insoluble fiber helps you stay regular. The soluble type helps keep your blood-sugar levels from rising too rapidly after you eat. That makes them a great choice for people with diabetes (or those wise enough to realize that diets prescribed for that group are also the healthiest ones for all of us). The fiber absorbs water in the stomach, creating a gel that slows absorption of carbohydrates, helping to assure that energy is delivered to the body slowly and steadily rather than in a sharp spike followed by a plunge.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, a 100-gram (3.5-ounce) serving of cooked lima beans provides 18 percent of the iron you need in a day. (Another source says 25 percent.) It also has 25 percent of the manganese (which helps the bones, brain and nervous system and may reduce heart-disease risk), along with 21 percent of the folate (vitamin B9), 16 percent of the phosphorus and 14 percent of the thiamine (vitamin B1). Lima beans contain no cholesterol and no trans fats, and what little fat they have is mostly the healthy, polyunsaturated kind. The 115 calories you’ll ingest in that 100-gram serving come mostly from protein, not from fat, and limas are filling enough to be helpful tool in weight loss.

The small downsides? The canned product may contain a fair amount of sodium (check the label), which some people should limit. And don’t pop a raw lima into your mouth without boiling it first (a canned or frozen one, already pre-cooked, is OK) because the uncooked bean contains phytohaemagglutinin. This toxin can trigger nausea, and if you let it into your life you may someday have to spell it.

BUY/STORE/SERVE:

Fresh lima beans are most readily available during their brief, late-summer growing season (look for pods that aren’t yellowed, spotted or dried-up-looking). Not to worry: Dried, canned or frozen beans may be purchased in grocery stores throughout the year. You’ll want to soak the dried ones in water overnight. To cook fresh limas, boil them in salted water for about an hour. Refrigerate fresh beans in their pods in a plastic bag or crisper for a day or two; you can store frozen beans for up to six months in the freezer.

Lima bean recipes are legion, and a quick Google search yields a host of them online. Steam them in chicken broth for a vitamin-filled holiday-dinner side dish. Create a soup flavored with a hambone. Use dried beans to make a purée as the Peruvians do. Combine limas with salt pork, chicken, tomatoes and corn to prepare a hearty Brunswick stew. Swap limas in for chickpeas when making homemade hummus. And remember that when it comes to beans, robbing the cradle is no crime—baby limas are a particular treat.

—Timothy Kelley

DID YOU KNOW? Nature has given the lima bean plant a clever defense against tiny predators. When threatened by spider mites, it secretes a nectar that attracts carnivorous mites that enjoy having those spider mites for lunch.

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