Beans, beans, the magical fruit...Alicia Silverstone and Flatulence

God, I still cringe inside when I think of my mom singing this famous ode to flatulence.  Like most people, I'd like to ignore the fact that we all do have gas, but I admire Alicia Silverstone's frankness about the subject in her new book, The Kind Diet.  (There will likely be many more posts on this book, as the recipes in the book are fabulous!).  She has a section called, "Beans and Fartiness"  in the book that details some tips on how to cut down the farty factor of beans.  I have just in the past year or so started using dried beans and was not aware of some of these tips. 

• Discard the water which your beans have soaked in!
• Cook beans with a small piece of kombu sea vegetable or bay leaf (Score!  I bought a bay leaf wreath for Christmas this year and I have tons of dried bay leaves, even after I discarded half of the leaves.)
• Bring beans up to a boil in an open pot or pressure cooker and skim off any foam in the first ten minutes of cooking.  Alicia calls this "farty foam."  You can return the lid to the pot after 10 minutes and continue to simmer the beans until they are done.

In addition to the cooking techniques, Alicia recommends chewing the beans well.  I was hoping that she would talk about digestive enzymes, as my knowledge is limited on them.

I hope to blog some more about the book and the recipes in the coming week....