It's no secret that I love beans. I write about them all the time. Just take a look around this Bean Bible site.

Lots of people love beans, but bean eaters suffer from a certain well-known social problem. Not to be too delicate or euphemistic about it, bean eaters almost invariably suffer from gassiness. Flatulence. Farts. Air biscuits. Fluffs. (Or whatever creative euphemism you've come up with.) There, I've said it. From here on, I'll try to be a little more delicate.

I'm here today to help. First, we'll briefly consider the cause of the problem, then we'll discuss what you can do about it.

The Cause

We get gas from beans for a simple reason: Beans contain complex sugars called oligosaccharides. We do not have the necessary enzymes in our digestive tracts to digest them, so the stomach passes them along to the large intestine. There, they break down and form gasses. Uh oh; gas equals discomfort (to use the official medical term for PAIN). And there's the problem of getting rid of the gasses--they have to go somewhere, you know. To compound the problem, when released (as you all know), the gasses do not have a pleasant odor. Other foods such as cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower contain oligosaccharides in smaller amounts and can cause similar problems.

How To Prevent the Problem

I have done extensive research on this matter. I've visited dozens of Web sites that address the matter and read about it in more than a dozen books about beans. I've even read the official word from the National Digestive Diseases Information Clearinghouse. I have checked this out.

I discovered that everyone agrees on the cause, but the advice on preventing gas is all over the map. The bean industry groups, for example, would never tell us to quit eating beans. They advise us to eat more beans so our systems can adjust to them. Oh, also drink more fluids when we eat beans.

Soak, boil, and rinse the beans. To use dry beans, you must soak them so they reabsorb water and soften to edibility. Then you boil them for a while to continue the softening process.

Most of my sources indicate that the water used for soaking and boiling leaches out most of the oligosaccharides. Discard this water and most of your problem goes down the drain. Two sources claim that boiling the beans first, followed by a long soak and a thorough rinse completely eliminates the problem. Some sources advise that adding an eighth of a teaspoon of baking soda to the boiling water decreases the intensity of the problem. They also suggest draining and rinsing canned beans.

A noted cooking writer, however, did an extensive but non-scientific study and concluded that the soaking/boiling water theory is bunk. He says he's proved that it makes no difference.

Who shall we believe? Try it and decide for yourself. As for me and my house, we find that boiled, soaked, rinsed, water-discarded, even baking-soda-added beans still produce gas. If it's less than it would have been otherwise, we can't tell.

Avoid other gas-causing activities. Doctors have determined that other things we do contribute to our intestinal gas problem. Anything that causes us to swallow air will result in gas that needs to work its way out of our systems. Chewing gum, gulping when we drink liquids (especially at water fountains), wearing loose-fitting dentures, and smoking result in swallowed air. Drinking carbonated beverages also puts gas-causing materials into our systems. If we avoid these activities, our gas problems will be less severe.

Use commercial remedies, such as Beano. All my sources agreed that Beano, a commercial nostrum available in drug stores and health food shops, solves the problem. You take a couple drops of Beano as you eat the beans and the problem never comes up. Beano puts the necessary enzymes to digest the oligosaccharides into our systems. Voila! No gas.

Less well known are pills that contain activated charcoal, such as Charcocaps, Charcoal Plus, and Flatulex (now there's an appealing name!). Activated charcoal, the primary filtering medium in gas masks, absorbs nasty odors and renders bad gasses harmless. Since we are advised not to take these pills when on other oral medications (they interfere with the body's ability to absorb the medication), I haven't tried these. I wonder, however, if you still end up with gas that just doesn't smell bad.

Add epazote to the beans when cooking. Epazote, a little-known herb also called Mexican Tea, helps control gas when cooked with beans. It adds a strong, distinctive taste that is common to Central and South American cooking. Look for it in Hispanic groceries or health food stores. You can also buy it online; just search for "epazote."

Don't eat beans. Refraining from beans would certainly solve the problem, but it's such a drastic solution! I love my beans way too much to give them up over a little gastro-intestinal discomfort.

What Will Work for You?

Try out some of the above suggestions (except the last one, of course) to solve your bean-gas problem. As a major-league bean lover, I've followed the bean growers' advice and I'm eating more beans. That doesn't seem to help a lot, but I am having more fun.

Book and Internet research, of course, have their limitations. You and I need to find out for ourselves what will help. Epazote and Beano are next on my list of things to try. May you, too, find relief without having to give up your beloved beans.

This article, in slightly different form, appeared originally on my Bean Lovers' site on Suite 101 (it's still there).

Copyright © 2002 Richard Mann. All rights reserved. Please contact the author for permission to use this article (includes reprints in mailing lists, newsletters, and/or any other purpose/format) and give details of its proposed use. Any and all use of this article in any way without permission is prohibited under copyright law. Acceptable use: Please feel free to link to this page. Of course, you can always print these recipes for your own personal use (that's what they're here for).