Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
You asked for it, you got it. The brand of the bean was Great Value, which is a Walmart brand and I was just now at Walmart and bought what I think it was but not sure, which is Cranberry beans. They are tan with dark red speckles and not the usual navy or pinto we are all familiar with. A serving has 9 grams of fiber.
Now this is where my memory isn't quite clear so if this doesn't work the first time you'll want to experiment. Put the beans on to soak and I use a cast iron kettle if it matters. I cover them with water. The part where my memory isn't clear though is whether I actually changed the water every single day or whether I soaked for 2 whole days the first time which is quite possible. I know that I was wondering at a couple of points whether I should throw them out. They got rafts of bubbles on the surface, which I scooped off a couple of times. By the third or fourth day, can't remember now, I was def thinking I should throw them out but I drained and sniffed them and decided to go ahead and use them so I cooked them up as usual and that's when the fun started. LOL.
Oh, and Mikala, I did soak them outside the fridge and uncovered. I do hope that it works for someone else...it's a group experiment of a sort.
D Boy, I"m looking into that hot yoga...
Just my two cents worth of thoughts here. If it's the fermentation of the beans that made them the "magic bullet", so to speak, to alleviate your constipation problems, it may well be that the type of beans used doesn't really matter. Unless it's also the fiber content or other properties of the beans that also played a part in the process, but I don't know that bean 1 vs. bean 2 vary all that much in their fiber content or anything else other than appearance or maybe flavor. The point is maybe people could experiment with different kinds of dried beans and see how those work.
Fermentation is a process in which bacteria or other organisms present in a substrate ( in this case the soaking bean mix), or which got into the substrate from the atmosphere ( omnipresent in the air or perhaps the pot, but this is a natural process too) break down the carbohydrate, sugars, proteins in the mixture to provide energy for their own growth and reproductive processes. The fermentation process produces gas and other intermediate organic products ( ie, acids, alcohols as opposed to breaking down the substrate completely into CO2 and water, as in the process of oxidation). Perhaps some of those intermediate products of fermentation play some part in alleviating constipation- as they may well also when fermented products such as kefir are eaten.
The rate of fermentation is temperature dependent, with more occuring at higher temperatures ( of course not too hot as to kill the microorganisms carrying out this process). So you would want to leave them out at room temp as opposed to refrigerating them as refrigerator temps slow down or even inhibit fermentation. Leaving the mixture uncovered would also, I'd think, leave it open to the environmental microrganisms that initiate and carry out fermententation ( which is what you want).
I know this is generic information but what's helped my constipation issues is just eating more whole grains and foods with good fiber.
Things like oatmeal, brown rice, whole grains, etc.
Before I struggled sometimes going only once every few days. But these days it's almost too much, sometimes going four times a day to the restroom.
That's because you're normal dear. Count your blessings. I can eat 50 grams of fiber or more per day and still suffer, or rather, I did. I'm having to cut back on that fiber some these days.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowsnow
The cast iron pot may indeed make a difference. Some bacteria do better in an iron rich environment than others! How warm do you think it was in your house those 4 days? And were the beans covered or open to the air? Did these beans taste different than the beans you usually cook? And what did you add to the beans when you cooked them?
Yes that's why I thought I'd mention it. It was back in February and I don't overheat my house and I tend to put the temp down to 65 at night and while I'm gone during the day. I did not cover the beans that I remember--I mean I generally don't.
As for what I added...not much. I prefer a very simple bean soup and I believe that I just added onions and garlic but may have added some carrots and/or celery. I'm pretty sure it was no more than that. Also, when I add the onions I saute them first for better flavor. It does seem as if they were more bland than usual but I figured that was the bean variety or that I had soaked out the bean flavor. I remember thinking that I was suffering less gas issues than usual and in fact gas issues are now a thing of the past as well. I haven't had a bout of silent but deadlies in months now. LOL.
Two doctors I know well (one my cousin and one in my band - both GPs) say that 90% or more of the problems they see are lifestyle based or caused/aggravated. Whether the figure is 60% or 90% doesn't matter much - the point is the same. Medical Science cannot fix us if we put too much radiation and dioxin into the environment (and therefore our bodies). They cannot fix us if we eat improper diets...the cause of many of the worst diseases throughout history.
It's a strange thing. On one hand Medical Science has "cured" major diseases by telling us to eat a piece of fruit or use some brewers yeast - yet on the other hand, wholistic approaches are sometimes considered quackery (I am obviously speaking of only some parts of the trade).
My guess is the IBS is not one thing. That is, it is a syndrome that may have various causes and various "cures" (or factors which can mitigate it). It's fairly clear when the "triggers" are stress, food and hormones that it can be related to the same thing that many such conditions are.....our modern lifestyles.
None of this is very new. It was discovered long ago that "industrial" lifestyle is not healthy - and that brought about all sorts of attempts and movements (Kellogs, Grahams, etc.) to get people out of their everyday stresses and feed them healthier diets. Not to say they had it right, but they did see the damage that modern life can inflict upon us.
Anyway, chances are if you stop working, stop answering the phone, don't watch the news, don't have sick and disabled family to worry about, don't need to make more money and are able to otherwise escape some of modern society - and eat differently - you'd tamp down your symptoms. Easy, eh?
In the bigger picture I'm amazed that more Americans don't want to emulate Germany, Denmark, France and other countries where the quest for the Almighty buck and "success" is given a back seat to a decent a wholesome lifestyle. As it stands now, about double the amount of Americans report feeling pain regularly - as opposed to some other countries. We are obviously driving ourselves sick...and for what?
Anyway, being as this is the Health/Wellness forum, the book I wrote above at least fits the topic and may provide food for thought.
Your whole post was interesting but I just want to address one part of it for the purposes of our topic. First of all I do believe that alternative healing can be very effective and I wish there was more collusion among doctors to deliver the very best health care. I'll just stop there with that one as I don't want to take our topic in another direction but I will say that I've had some great experiences with alt healthcare.
Stress is huge though and one that few people think to address even when very very ill, such as when they have a cancer dx and of course the cancer dx will cause them even more stress. Most people think they can do little about it besides get a day off but I have investigated and there are many things that will help. I've had great success with EFT, which has many videos on youtube devoted to it. I really like Tapping with Brad Yates, and he's handsome too! LOL. However, even though I had been working on my stress for the prior 4 years, using EFT, yoga, and meditation, even energy medicine and I still had bowel issues. I suppose it's possible that the stress relief set me up for healing though and that's one thing I'll never know.
Another interesting thing about all this is that in about two weeks I'm moving out of my house and into my pickup for a year long (more or less) camping trip. Two things stand out to me about this...my job as a special ed teacher just ended and there goes a lot of stress. OTOH, anyone with or without bowel issues knows what happens when you travel. Uh huh, that's right, constipation. This trip will be the real test but just in case, I've got a bag of cranberry beans in my luggage.
The rate of fermentation is temperature dependent, with more occuring at higher temperatures ( of course not too hot as to kill the microorganisms carrying out this process). So you would want to leave them out at room temp as opposed to refrigerating them as refrigerator temps slow down or even inhibit fermentation. Leaving the mixture uncovered would also, I'd think, leave it open to the environmental microrganisms that initiate and carry out fermententation ( which is what you want).
That's because you're normal dear. Count your blessings. I can eat 50 grams of fiber or more per day and still suffer, or rather, I did. I'm having to cut back on that fiber some these days.
Yes that's why I thought I'd mention it. It was back in February and I don't overheat my house and I tend to put the temp down to 65 at night and while I'm gone during the day. I did not cover the beans that I remember--I mean I generally don't.
As for what I added...not much. I prefer a very simple bean soup and I believe that I just added onions and garlic but may have added some carrots and/or celery. I'm pretty sure it was no more than that. Also, when I add the onions I saute them first for better flavor. It does seem as if they were more bland than usual but I figured that was the bean variety or that I had soaked out the bean flavor. I remember thinking that I was suffering less gas issues than usual and in fact gas issues are now a thing of the past as well. I haven't had a bout of silent but deadlies in months now. LOL.
Wow, even with the onions and garlic! That soup sounds good, besides its apparent beneficial properties.
Wow, even with the onions and garlic! That soup sounds good, besides its apparent beneficial properties.
Alas I can't seem to quite get the beans like grandma cooked them. I picked her brain for days once, trying to figure out what the cooking difference was between her creamy bean soup and my beany tasting soup and I never did get it right. Mine is OK, hers was magnificent. I know that she did boil the hell out of hers the whole time but I've tried that too. Honestly she just put the beans in the pot, sometimes soaked, sometimes not, threw in a cut up onion and boiled it to death till it was done. It came out fabulous every time but when I tried that it either didn't taste like hers or it burned. She even gave me her bean pot just before she died. Today I am getting ready to re-season that same pot.
I've been dealing with this my whole life and I've tried everything. I changed my diet to more fiber,eat oatmeal everyday, fiber additives,drink 1 gal + water daily and even tried some of the prescription meds which only gave me horrible side effects. On the advise of a friend I tried doing a series of colonics and even that didn't do much. One of my colonics techs told me about these supplement pills called Intestinal Movement,yes they sound like just another miracle pill but these really worked!
They're made to get your intestines moving again and you only take them as needed up to 15 pills a day. The first day I took 8 and the very next morning I had a bm,actually 3 which is a miracle for me. I figured it was a fluke but every day since I was going 2-3 times a day and I reduced my amount down to 4 pills after the third day and still the same results. After 2 weeks I stopped taking them but I still had bm's,damn these things really work. That was 7 months ago and since then I've only had to take them one time for about 10 days and everything was good again. You can get them on Amazon and many other online stores and theres many positive reviews from long time sufferers,best $28.00 I've ever spent!
...Put the beans on to soak and I use a cast iron kettle if it matters. I cover them with water....I cooked them up as usual and that's when the fun started...
Leaving water standing in cast-iron cookware is not recommended, it is detrimental to the cookware.
Quote:
Originally Posted by stepka
...it's quite possible that the beans fermented and populated my gut with exactly what it needs...
No, it isn't.
Quote:
Originally Posted by yellowsnow
The cast iron pot may indeed make a difference. Some bacteria do better in an iron rich environment than others!...
This idea needs to be chucked right out the window immediately- the process of cooking the beans kills off any bacteria and any other living organisms. If these beans did anything at all (and I'm not convinced that they did), bacteria played no part in it and did not 'populate' the gut.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Count your blessings. I can eat 50 grams of fiber or more per day and still suffer, or rather, I did. I'm having to cut back on that fiber some these days. 
Today I am getting ready to re-season that same pot.
