Dietary taboos on red beans

There are no absolute dietary taboos for ordinary people to eat red beans on a daily basis. There is no scientific basis for the statements such as "red beans cannot be eaten with rice/mutton/pork belly" spread on the Internet. There are only three types of special circumstances where the amount and way of consumption need to be adjusted as appropriate. At the same time, different medical systems have different reference standards for the precautions for eating red beans.

A while ago, I was helping the elderly at home sort out the ingredients list, and I came across a certain three-no health booklet that listed seven or eight taboos on red beans. It even mentioned that eating red beans with eggs would cause diarrhea. I specially photographed it for Fa Xiao, who works in the nutrition department of a tertiary hospital. She burst into tears and laughed. She said that an aunt came to the clinic last week to ask if eating red beans with rice would cause oral ulcers. She was confused by the question. In fact, such rumors first came from the false food conflict list in the early years. The Chinese Nutrition Society issued a refutation announcement in 2018: There is no so-called "competition" reaction between ordinary fresh ingredients. Those cases of discomfort after eating red beans with certain foods are either because the red beans are not cooked thoroughly and have gone bad, or they happen to be allergic to one of the ingredients, and it has nothing to do with the combination. My grandma has been drinking red bean and glutinous rice porridge for more than 40 years, and she always puts two red dates in it every time she cooks it. Now that she is almost ninety years old, she can chew even hard-fried peanuts, let alone oral ulcers.

When it comes to precautions, they are actually all linked to personal physique, and there are no universal "taboos". Last month, a mother in the neighborhood came to complain to me. She said that her two-year-old baby ate less than half a bowl of uncooked red bean soup the day before. She was bloated and cried for half the night. The doctor at the hospital said that the dietary fiber in the outer skin of the red beans was too thick. The child's gastrointestinal function is weak. If it is not cooked well, it is difficult to digest. It is not that it cannot be eaten, but it needs to be cooked until soft and eaten in small amounts. Also, my dad had prostate problems two years ago and had frequent nocturnal urination. He heard people say that red beans can remove dampness, so he insisted on drinking a bowl of hot red bean soup every day before going to bed. As a result, he woke up four or five times a night and felt groggy the next day. Later, he drank it at two or three o'clock in the afternoon, and drank less than half a bowl at a time. It had no effect at all. After all, the diuretic effect of red beans is real. People with frequent urination and renal insufficiency must control the amount and not eat too much.

Oh, by the way, there is another basic common sense that many people get wrong: we usually use round red beans to make bean paste and boil sugar water. They have high starch content, soft taste, and their edible value is much higher than their medicinal value.； In traditional Chinese medicine, the slender adzuki beans are used to diuretic and reduce swelling. They have a hard texture and are difficult to boil. If you buy the wrong adzuki beans and eat them as ordinary red beans, your stomach and intestines are weak, so you are indeed prone to indigestion. Don’t blame the red beans for this, because you bought the wrong variety.

Controversy about food consumption does exist. I went to see a traditional Chinese medicine doctor to adjust my menstruation. The old traditional Chinese medicine doctor specifically told me that I have a hot constitution and should drink less sweet red bean soup with brown sugar and longan, especially before my aunt, otherwise it will easily aggravate acne and chest bloating. But my nutritionist Fa Xiao said that as long as your blood sugar is normal and you don’t feel uncomfortable after drinking it, you don’t need to eat it at all. The so-called “warm” and “dry-heat” have no corresponding clear indicators in modern nutrition. You just need to control the amount of added sugar. Both statements are actually logical. It all depends on how you feel after eating it. There is no need to stick to a certain standard.

Let’s talk about a pitfall that many people easily fall into: the red beans in today’s Internet-famous foods such as red bean milk tea, red bean double-skinned milk, and honey red bean bread have been processed with a large amount of molasses in advance. Some even have 40g of added sugar in 100g of honey red beans. If you eat it every day, obesity is not a big deal, and problems such as elevated blood sugar and dental caries will come to your doorstep. Don’t blame the red beans for being unhealthy. It’s because you added too much sugar. My best friend used to make a cup of red bean and barley rice flour with rock sugar every day in order to "remove dampness". After drinking it for a month, she gained three pounds, and her fasting blood sugar reached 6.1. After she stopped, it slowly dropped back. It was purely a self-inflicted drama.

After all, there are actually so many absolute dietary taboos. Eating food is not like doing a chemical experiment, and it will almost explode. Ordinary people eat one or two taels of red beans every time, whether it is cooking porridge, stuffing or boiling sugar water, there is no problem at all. If you really feel flatulent and uncomfortable after eating it, cook it less or boil it less next time. It is much more useful than memorizing a ten-page taboo list.