Description

Fresh Yard-Long Beans – small size 2 bunch

About

Yard-long bean is a fast growing annual plant; require a trellis to support its growth. Dwarf and tall climbing varieties exist. Depending upon the cultivar type, it bears blue to violet flowers after about 6-10 weeks of the seedling. Numerous pencil thin, tender, light-green, flexible-textured pods appear after about another two to four weeks following flowering. These fleshy, pendulous pods are usually harvested while they are immature and eaten as green vegetables. The pods vary in length that ranges from 20 to 30 cm.

As in other bean varieties, harvesting may not be a time-guided event. The pods harvested early in order to gather young, immature-beans, or they may be left on the shrub to dry to get dried beans.

Benefits

• Yard-long beans are one of the ancient cultivated crops. Young, immature pods are one of the very low-calorie vegetables; 100 g beans contain just 47 calories.
• The pods contain large quantities of soluble and insoluble fibers. Since the entire green pod is eaten as in green beans, sufficient amount of dietary fiber is obtained in the diet. Dietary fiber helps to protect the colon mucosa by reducing its exposure time to toxic substances as well as by binding to cancer-causing chemicals in the colon. Fiber rich food also found to reduce LDL-cholesterol levels by decreasing reabsorption of cholesterol binding bile acids in the colon.
• Fresh yard-long beans are one of the finest sources of folates. 100 g beans provide 62 µg or 15% of daily requirement of folates. Folate along with vitamin B-12 is one of the essential components of DNA synthesis and cell division. Adequate folate in the diet around conception and during pregnancy may help prevent neural-tube defects in the newborns.
• Fresh beans contain a good amount of vitamin-C. 100 g yard-long beans provide 18.8 mg, or 31% of vitamin-C. Vitamin-C is a powerful water-soluble antioxidant, and when adequately provided in the diet, it helps build immunity to combat infections, contribute to maintaining blood vessel elasticity, and offer some protection from cancers.