Dry Beans & Nutrition

 For the disclaimer . . I am not a nutritionist. I know nothing about medicine. I think humans should be able to live on Dr. Pepper! Don't believe anything I say!  :)  

Vince had blood work done recently and his iron level was low. I was shocked that it was recommended that he takes a children's gummy vitamin. He isn't going to do that! I checked the ingredient list and the first ingredient is glucose syrup. The second is sugar.  Farther down the list is palm oil. Yes, they do have a good bit of iron in them but I started looking to see which foods are high in iron. I wish that we had been taught more about nutrition in school. We've learned a lot in the past few years but I think back to how nice it would have been had we known 40 or more years ago what we know now and we still have a whole lot to learn.

We also struggle to get enough protein and have both been drinking a protein shake every day. I don't like any of the artificial sweeteners, nor do I like Stevia which is in so many of them. We found one at Natural Grocer that has no sweetener at all but it's about $40 and with both of us using it, we go through at least one, sometimes 1-1/2 containers of it each week. 

Tonight I was looking up foods rich in iron. Because of the oxalates in spinach, we try not to eat too much of that but another recommended foods is cannellini beans - most any beans really. We LOVE cannellini beans and buy 50 pounds of them from Azure, usually once a year.

As I was looking at the nutritional value in cannellini beans, mainly to check the iron they provide, I noticed the protein. I already knew beans were high in protein but it hit me . . why can't I make a protein shake using cannellini beans. When I can them, I don't add anything - no salt, no fat . . I could just dump a pint jar of beans in the blender, add bananas or blueberries or strawberries, milk or chocolate milk . . and have a smoothie with about the same protein I'm getting from some of the powdered mix, plus more iron and LESS money. And, I won't have to store those containers of protein powder!

Why didn't I think of this before now?

There are many recipes online for protein shakes using cannellini beans. We're going to try this one tomorrow.

I'll report back on what we think!