The peasants’ food is becoming more and more trendy because it is healthy food, rich in nutritional values and poor of dangerous saturated fats of animal origin. Legumes present us with a universe of biodiversity: beans, lentils, peas, fava beans, lupins, chick peas, soybeans … are not only rich in protein (in the past they were called “the meat of the poor”) and carbohydrates, but also rich in B vitamins and minerals such as for example, iron and calcium. Moreover legumes contain a limited amount of fats, almost all unsaturated fats. Combined with grains (eg pasta and chickpeas) provide some of the essential amino acids.

However, many people do not eat legumes because they cause intestinal fermentation and flatulence. In fact, our body is unable to digest and absorb the oligosaccharides and so the bacteria decompose them producing gas. To decrease the presence of oligosaccharides it can be useful to add, in the soaking water of legumes, baking soda  (never cook with the soaking water), or , during the cooking process, ginger, bay leaves, rosemary or a piece of Kombu seaweed which makes the pulses more digestible. In this way it is also possible to avoid the use of salt (always add the salt after and not during cooking).

Finally, legumes can be boiled with salt and favorite spices, and stored with the cooking water into hot sterilized jars tightly closed, lying with the head down until completely cooled, in order to create the vacuum effect ….and eat them out of season.