Rest Assured and Feed Them The Nutrition Depository, Beans!

Every mom knows that balanced consumption of nutrients is crucial for children in their growth period. A healthy meal packed with beneficial nutrients helps strengthen our children’s bones and muscles and creating a solid foundation for developing physical strength that will influence their health throughout their life even after the growth phase. Consuming the right mix of nutrients during this time plays a critical role in decreasing the risk of developing various diseases, as well as enhancing learning performance. Vegetable-derived foods, especially, help with improving brain rotation abilities better than animal-derived foods. One of the foods that are highly rich in vegetarian protein is beans. They even have a nickname, ‘beef grown in the fields.’


Beans consist of a very well-balanced mix of nutrients other than vegetarian protein like dietary fiber, phosphorus, sulfur, iron, silicon, calcium, zinc, magnesium, and vitamins. That is why numerous health magazines have named beans the world’s top 5 healthy food. Beans are an indispensable ingredient in Okinawan and Bulgarian style foods, which are globally recognized as being the best for longevity. Beans are also one of the most widely used, familiar ingredients in Korean food. Soybean paste, which is made by fermenting beans, is the main condiment in various dishes like Korean soup recipes, muchim, and bokkeum. Tofu, which is made with beans, is also a must-have food on a Korean dining table. People even grow beans as sprouts and enjoy beansprouts in Korea.


Beans have indeed become the center of a complicated controversy among mothers. Some statements claiming that a bean diet should be avoided to prevent children’s precocious puberty have been arising. Jumping straight to the conclusion, the vegetarian estrogen in beans does not harm children’s health. It is almost impossible to have an excessive daily intake of isoflavone through diet. There is almost no report of having side effects, even though the intake of isoflavone through food in eastern Asian countries, including Korea, China, and Japan, are much higher by tens of folds than that in the west. Vegetarian estrogen actually helps lower the side effects caused by stronger estrogen, so don’t you think you can be rest assured?


Unfortunately, however, although beans are an amazing source of protein for growing children, they are also one of the foods that kids don’t like to eat. Adults may enjoy the savory flavors of beans but many children don’t like the unique smell of beans without any distinguishing flavors, so even if you make healthy dishes with beans, a lot of the time they’ll turn them down. If your kid is one to not enjoy beans like this, why don’t you try appealing to them by making sweet yet healthy snacks with beans? We recommend adding the nutrients of beans to the ever-popular walnut cookie that any kid loves to eat!