Every Day Is Special: beans

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February 10 - World Pulses Day

Posted on February 10, 2020

When I hear the word pulse, I think of a blood pulse - the rhythm you can feel in your wrist as your heart beats out blood and the blood beats that rhythm all through your body.

On second thought, I also think of music pulsing - music with a good, strong beat, that is!

But! - I didn't know that the word pulse also means the edible seeds of various plants: chickpeas, lentils, beans, peas, etc.

It is that completely separate meaning of the word pulse that we are celebrating today in this United Nations event. Pulses are important foods, globally, especially nowadays.

Beef farming is so inefficient, it
represents a 96% loss of food production!

Raising and eating meat is a problem for several reasons: religious reasons, health reasons, and especially environmental reasons. It takes less a lot less energy, land, and water to produce plant-based foods than to grow livestock we use as meat. And some livestock (ahem, cows, looking at you!) add global-warming-causing greenhouse gases to the atmosphere.

If a country didn't add any acres of land dedicated to agriculture, not even one acre, but only grew plants, they could grow 2 to 20 TIMES more food. (Read more about this here.)

Since there are A LOT of people in the world, including a lot of hungry people who regularly don't get enough to eat, it's important to get as much food from ever acre of agricultural land as possible. And pulses are especially wonderful foods among all the other great plant-based foods, because they are high protein and high fiber, with lots of vitamins and minerals (including iron!). Pulses are also low fat.

(People on low carb diets often limit how many beans, lentils, etc., they eat, because these nutritious foods do have carbs, but again, much of the carbohydrates are dietary fiber, which is a necessary part of a healthy diet.)

Check out this website as you plan your World Pulses Day celebration. Eat pulse-based meals and photograph them for social media, using #LovePulses and #WorldPulsesDay hashtags.

Black bean salad

Chickpea curry

Potato lentil soup

Maybe next year you can plan a community event promoting pulses and eating low on the food chain!?!

Also on this date:

V & A Day

Umbrella Day

Plimsoll Day

Jell-O Week

(Second full week of February)

Scientist Per Teodor Cleve's birthday

Anniversary of a riot over a silent film

Feast of St. Paul's Shipwreck in Malta

Anniversary of a computer's victory over a reigning world chess champion

All the News That's Fit to Print Day

Tu B'Shvat

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

February 8 – Dry Bean Day

Posted on February 8, 2018

I guess it makes sense that agricultural folks need to meet, exchange information, share problems and problem-solving ideas, and so forth.

There are councils and boards and associations for dairy and dairy promotion, almond growers, fruit growers, etc. - and apparently there is a U.S. Dry Bean Council that meets every year with the U.S. Dry Pea and Lentil Council, the U.S.A. Sunflower Association, and the U.S.A. Popcorn Board. Today is the first day of the "Dry Bean Congress," held in Cancun México.

That's why today is considered Dry Bean Day. Which is a perfect day to:

Make some dry-bean soup - warning, it takes a long time!

Make jars of dry beans for soup to give as gifts.

Make a bean sprout dish.

Do a dry-bean art project!

Make counting and sorting activities for younger kids.

Also on this date:

Opera Day

Chemist Bernard Courtois's birthday

Science fiction author Jules Verne's birthday

Scientist Daniel Bernoulli's birthday

Xerox inventor Chester Carlson's birthday

Culture Day in Slovenia

Boy Scout Day

Plan ahead:

Check out my Pinterest boards for:

February holidays
February birthdays
Historical anniversaries in February

And here are my Pinterest boards for:

January 5 – Bean Day

Posted on January 5, 2014

When I say “beans,” what do you think of?

Long bright green beans? Dark red kidney beans? Pinto beans smashed and refried with chiles?

According to the United Nations, only members of the Phaseolus genus should be called beans. So that includes string beans, runner beans, lima beans, kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans, green beans, and more. But some people consider any member of the legume family as beans. Using that definition, we can include mung beans, soy beans, fava beans, peanuts, black-eyed peas, chick peas, and split peas, and lentils. Even though we use the word beans, nobody includes coffee “beans,” cacao “beans,” or vanilla “beans” in the bean group.

What good are beans?

Actually, in addition to being tasty, beans provide important things like fiber, protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, B vitamins, and iron. So they are a great part of a healthy diet!

Bean facts

Consumers can buy dry beans, canned beans, frozen beans, and fresh beans.

North Dakota is the top producer of dry beans in the U.S. – producing almost a third of the total! (Thirty states grow dry edible beans.)

Pinto beans are the most popular dry beans in the U.S.

Beans came from the New World and were first deliberately grown in Central and South America. Brazil and Mexico are still among the top producers in the world, and Latin America is still the largest producer by region. India is one of the top producers of dry beans, and China and Indonesia are the world leaders in the production of green beans.