A bean is the seed of one of several genera of the flowering plant family Fabaceae, which are used as

vegetables for human or animal food.[1] They can be cooked in many different ways,[2] including
boiling, frying, and baking, and are used in many traditional dishes throughout the world.

Contents

1 Terminology

2 Cultivation

3 History

4 Types

5 Properties

5.1 Nutrients

5.2 Antinutrients

5.3 Flatulence

5.4 Health concerns

5.4.1 Toxins

5.4.2 Bacterial infection from bean sprouts

6 Production

7 See also

8 References

9 Bibliography

10 External links

Terminology

The word "bean" and its Germanic cognates (e.g. German Bohne) have existed in common use in West
Germanic languages since before the 12th century,[3] referring to broad beans, chickpeas, and other
pod-borne seeds. This was long before the New World genus Phaseolus was known in Europe. After
Columbian-era contact between Europe and the Americas, use of the word was extended to pod-borne
seeds of Phaseolus, such as the common bean and the runner bean, and the related genus Vigna. The
term has long been applied generally to many other seeds of similar form,[3][4] such as Old World
soybeans, peas, other vetches, and lupins, and even to those with slighter resemblances, such as coffee
beans, vanilla beans, castor beans, and cocoa beans. Thus the term "bean" in general usage can refer to
a host of different species.[5]
Local bean from Nepal.

Seeds called "beans" are often included among the crops called "pulses" (legumes),[3] although the
words are not always interchangeable (usage varies by plant variety and by region). Both terms, beans
and pulses, are usually reserved for grain crops and thus exclude those legumes that have tiny seeds and
are used exclusively for non-grain purposes (forage, hay, and silage), such as clover and alfalfa. The
United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization defines "BEANS, DRY" (item code 176)[5] as
applicable only to species of Phaseolus. This is one of various examples of how narrower word senses
enforced in trade regulations or botany often coexist in natural language with broader senses in culinary
use and general use; other common examples are the narrow sense of the word nut and the broader
sense of the word nut, and the fact that tomatoes are fruit, botanically speaking, but are often treated
as vegetables in culinary and general usage. Relatedly, another detail of usage is that several species of
plants that are sometimes called beans, including Vigna angularis (azuki bean), mungo (black gram),
radiata (green gram), and aconitifolia (moth bean), were once classified as Phaseolus but later
reclassified—but the taxonomic revision does not entirely stop the use of well-established senses in
general usage.

Cultivation

Field beans (broad beans, Vicia faba), ready for harvest

Unlike the closely related pea, beans are a summer crop that needs warm temperatures to grow.
Legumes are capable of nitrogen fixation and hence need less fertiliser than most plants. Maturity is
typically 55–60 days from planting to harvest.[6] As the bean pods mature, they turn yellow and dry up,
and the beans inside change from green to their mature colour.[clarification needed] As a vine, bean
plants need external support, which may take the form of special "bean cages" or poles. Native
Americans customarily grew them along with corn and squash (the so-called Three Sisters),[7] with the
tall cornstalks acting as support for the beans.

In more recent times, the so-called "bush bean" has been developed which does not require support
and has all its pods develop simultaneously (as opposed to pole beans which develop gradually).[8] This
makes the bush bean more practical for commercial production.

Bean creeper

History
The Beaneater (1580–1590) by Annibale Carracci

Baked beans on toast (with egg)

Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state
the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills.[9] In a form
improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand from the early seventh
millennium BCE, predating ceramics.[10] They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt. Not until
the second millennium BCE did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and
transalpine Europe.[11] In the Iliad (8th century BCE) there is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas
cast on the threshing floor.[12]

Beans were an important source of protein throughout Old and New World history, and still are today.

The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological
site in Peru, and dated to around the second millennium BCE.[13] However, genetic analyses of the
common bean Phaseolus show that it originated in Mesoamerica, and subsequently spread southward,
along with maize and squash, traditional companion crops.[14]

Most of the kinds commonly eaten fresh or dried, those of the genus Phaseolus, come originally from
the Americas, being first seen by a European when Christopher Columbus, while exploring what may
have been the Bahamas, found them growing in fields. Five kinds of Phaseolus beans were
domesticated[15] by pre-Columbian peoples: common beans (P. vulgaris) grown from Chile to the
northern part of what is now the United States, and lima and sieva beans (P. lunatus), as well as the less
widely distributed teparies (P. acutifolius), scarlet runner beans (P. coccineus) and polyanthus beans (P.
polyanthus)[16] One especially famous use of beans by pre-Columbian people as far north as the
Atlantic seaboard is the "Three Sisters" method of companion plant cultivation:

In the New World, many tribes would grow beans together with maize (corn), and squash. The corn
would not be planted in rows as is done by European agriculture, but in a checkerboard/hex fashion
across a field, in separate patches of one to six stalks each.

Beans would be planted around the base of the developing stalks, and would vine their way up as the
stalks grew. All American beans at that time were vine plants, "bush beans" having been bred only more
recently. The cornstalks would work as a trellis for the beans, and the beans would provide much-
needed nitrogen for the corn.

Squash would be planted in the spaces between the patches of corn in the field. They would be provided
slight shelter from the sun by the corn, would shade the soil and reduce evaporation, and would deter
many animals from attacking the corn and beans because their coarse, hairy vines and broad, stiff leaves
are difficult or uncomfortable for animals such as deer and raccoons to walk through, crows to land on,
etc.

Dry beans come from both Old World varieties of broad beans (fava beans) and New World varieties
(kidney, black, cranberry, pinto, navy/haricot).

Beans are a heliotropic plant, meaning that the leaves tilt throughout the day to face the sun. At night,
they go into a folded "sleep" position.

Types

Types of beans in a supermarket

Currently, the world genebanks hold about 40,000 bean varieties, although only a fraction are mass-
produced for regular consumption.[17]

Beans, average, canned, sugarfree

Nutritional value per 100 g (3.5 oz)

Energy 334 kJ (80 kcal)

Carbohydrates

10.5 g

Fat

0.5 g

Protein

9.6 g

Units

μg = micrograms • mg = milligrams

IU = International units

†Percentages are roughly approximated using US recommendations for adults.

Some bean types include:

Vicia

Vicia faba (broad bean or fava bean)

Vicia faba or broad beans, known in the US as fava beans

Phaseolus

Phaseolus acutifolius (tepary bean)

Phaseolus coccineus (runner bean)

Phaseolus lunatus (lima bean)

Phaseolus vulgaris (common bean; includes the pinto bean, kidney bean, black bean, Appaloosa bean as
well as green beans, and many others)

Phaseolus polyanthus (a.k.a. P. dumosus, recognized as a separate species in 1995)

Vigna

Vigna aconitifolia (moth bean)

Vigna angularis (adzuki bean)

Vigna mungo (urad bean)

Vigna radiata (mung bean)

Vigna subterranea (Bambara bean or ground-bean)

Vigna umbellata (ricebean)

Vigna unguiculata (cowpea; also includes the black-eyed pea, yardlong bean and others)

Cicer

Cicer arietinum (chickpea or garbanzo bean)

Pisum

Pisum sativum (pea)

Lathyrus

Lathyrus sativus (Indian pea)

Lathyrus tuberosus (tuberous pea)

Lens

Lentils
Lens culinaris (lentil)

Lablab

Lablab purpureus (hyacinth bean)

Hyacinth beans

Glycine

Glycine max (soybean)

Psophocarpus

Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (winged bean)

Psophocarpus tetragonolobus (winged bean)

Cajanus

Cajanus cajan (pigeon pea)

Mucuna

Mucuna pruriens (velvet bean)

Cyamopsis

Cyamopsis tetragonoloba or (guar)

Canavalia

Canavalia ensiformis (jack bean)

Canavalia gladiata (sword bean)

Macrotyloma

Macrotyloma uniflorum (horse gram)

Lupinus (lupin)

Lupinus mutabilis (tarwi)

Lupinus albus (lupini bean)

Arachis

Arachis hypogaea (peanut)