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Beans, Beans, Good for Your Heart?

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Featured Recipe: Warm Bean & Arugula Salad
See our Healthy Bean Recipe Collection

Recent studies show that adding a small serving of beans can make a difference.

By Joyce Hendley, for EatingWell, March/April 2008

The bean song we loved to sing as kids may be silly but it’s true. Eating beans regularly is good for your heart, and you don’t need to eat a hill of them to benefit. A study published last November in the Journal of Nutrition suggests having just 1⁄2 cup of cooked pinto beans daily might lower cholesterol.

Researchers from the Brainerd Veterans Administration Clinic in Brainerd, Minnesota, and the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service (ARS) in Grand Forks, North Dakota, recruited 40 adults with a cluster of conditions—including low HDL cholesterol, a high waist-to-hip ratio and high triglycerides, blood pressure and blood sugar levels—all symptoms associated with increased risk for heart disease. They randomly assigned them, and a similar group of 40 healthy adults, to include either 1⁄2 cup of pinto beans (served up in soup or bean salad) or a small bowl of chicken noodle soup in their daily diets. After 12 weeks, the bean eaters in both groups showed improved cholesterol levels: for the healthy controls, total cholesterol dropped by 8 percent and for those with several risk factors for heart disease it dropped by 4 percent.

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Learn more:

• Help your heart when you make our delicious bean recipes, including Warm Bean & Arugula Salad.
• Cook beans perfectly every time!
• Don’t let the flatulence factor scare you off beans. Learn how to avert a gas crisis.
• Try some of our favorite heart-healthy recipes.

Video: How to Make 2 Quick Heart Healthy Mediterranean Snacks

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