.: Legumes - The Base of a Low Carb Diet Plan

A low carb diet has been one of the popular weight loss diets in the past. Unfortunately experience has shown that it is not good for keeping the weight off. It is however, a very healthy diet. A low carb diet plan puts a limit on the amount of carbohydrates you take in and maintains a high level of protein. The protein is contained in fish, beans, meat and legumes.

If you are wondering, peanuts, alfalfa, clover, carob beans, soybeans, peas, lentils and beans fall into the category of legumes. International studies have found that legumes play a big part in the diet of communities that have a low incidence of heart disease.

Carbohydrates are in a range of foods in varying quantities. When they get into your blood they become glucose, thus increasing your blood sugar level. A diet that is low in carbs can help to stabilize your blood sugar level.

Low carb diets are a popular choice amongst people who want to lose weight fast. This is because your body needs to burn fat for energy if there is a comparatively low level of sugar in your blood.

A low carb diet is a matter of choosing which carb to take into your body. Sweets, baked goods, biscuits, white bread and sugary drinks contain carbs that are bad for losing weight and health in general.

The carbs that are contained in legumes and fruit and vegetables, on the other hand, are good for you. These are complex carbohydrates which are contain a lot of fiber. Fiber slows down your digestion, makes you feel full and keeps your blood glucose level from going up sharply.

As with all diets you need to do some planning before you start. You should avoid pasta, carrots and potatoes because they will cause a sharp rise in insulin levels. Fortunately legumes are one of the types of foods that can add a rich variety of flavors to your meals. To see which legumes have what level of carbs, you will need to get hold of a glycemic index chart. This will be invaluable in helping you stay within a daily limit of carbohydrates.

When you are choosing legumes for your diet, stay away from canned varieties. If you do not have a choice, then for the canned beans that are low in sodium. Fresh is best and frozen is nearly as good. Darker colored beans have less carbs. And the carbs they do have are more easily absorbed by the body. Also, you do not necessarily have to cook your food. You can rinse and chill peas and beans and eat them raw.

Legumes contain a lot of protein, so when you are planning your diet you will need to remember to maintain a balanced level of proteins and fats. If your low carb diet entails a higher than usual level of proteins, this will result in your kidneys needing to process any excess as waste. So if you are suffering from any kind of kidney-related ailment, see your doctor before going on a low-carb diet.

Zara Buckley is a journalist with an interest in traditional remedies. Visit her site to learn more about fasting for weight loss and detoxing the body.

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.: Natural Weight Loss Tip 2 - Eat More Legumes (Beans)

Legumes and beans should be a healthy staple of any natural weight loss diet. Here are several reasons why legumes are so healthy and can help contribute to weight loss:

1. Legumes contain a lot of healthy fibers

Eating more fiber is a key to natural weight loss. Fiber helps your body cleanse itself, removing waste and cleaning out your digestive system. Since the average person has over 10 pounds of feces stuck in their digestive system, a lot of people will notice rapid weight loss just simply by increasing their fiber. As they become more regular, the eliminate this excess waste, giving them more energy, better digestion, natural weight loss and many other benefits.

Eating extra fiber also helps reduce your risk for colon cancer and other digestive disorders. So eating more legumes and beans is a great way to improve your health naturally and lose weight at the same time.

2. Legumes are high in healthy proteins

Legumes are high in healthy proteins which burn less efficiently than fat or carbohydrates, so you can consume more of these healthy proteins and lose weight compared to eating lots of carbs or fats. The key of course, is balance, combined with eating healthy, natural foods. Beans are missing an essential amino acid so that's why most people combine beans with rice (whole brown rice preferably - you'll want to avoid all white and processed grains and starches to avoid weight gain).

3. Legumes are a great substitute for meat

Legumes and beans high in protein and are a great substitute for meats. Instead of eating a steak burrito for dinner, just make a healthy bean burrito instead. Instead of a roast beef, try making a healthy, delicious bean salad with chickpeas and a variety of vegetables and spices. If you do a quick Google search online, you can find thousands of healthy and delicious bean recipes.

Substituting beans for meat will give you more of these healthy plant-based proteins, reduce your unhealthy saturated fat intake, and reduce your exposure to the toxins, pesticides, antibiotics and hormones found in conventional meats. This is a huge key for weight loss! Fat is the body's natural defense system for many of these toxins and pesticides (which are concentrated in meats due to bioconcentration). Fat is where the body stores these toxins that it can't break down, away from your vital organs where they do less damage. The problem is that with so much of these toxins, your body cannot release the fat without simultaneously releasing these toxins. So it's vital that you reduce your toxin intake as well as eat the healthy fruits, vegetables, berries and legumes which are the right antioxidants and enzymes to help your body eliminate these toxins.

Here's a list of some of the most commonly known legumes:

Alfalfa 

Clover 

Chickpeas (also called Garbanzo beans) 

Peas 

Beans (kidney beans, adzuki beans, etc.) 

Lentils 

Lupins 

Mesquite 

Carob 

Soy 

Peanuts

Start adding more of these healthy legumes to your diet and you'll be able to maintain a healthy weight by eating a healthy, natural diet.

Tom Corson-Knowles is a top Health Coach with a no-nonsense approach to creating health and wellness.

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.: Cheap Healthy Meals: Legumes

In my ever broadening quest for cheap healthy meals there are two crucial factors, which I search for. Inexpensive healthy meals need to have both a high nutritional density as well as a high satiety factor. The satiety of a food or meal is simply how full it makes your body think it is and for how long.

Researchers use the concept and in weight loss experiments measure the satiety of foods by carefully observing the eating patterns of groups of people following consumption of the test meal. Legumes are high on the satiety scale as well as rich in nutrients.

Incorporating legumes into your regular diet, due to their high satiety factor, is also a good weight loss strategy.

Common legumes such as beans, lentils and chickpeas have sufficient protein to stand in as a meat substitute. As I have no qualms about and thoroughly enjoy eating meat I do not take the substitution thing too far!

Legumes are also high in dietary fiber and essential minerals such as iron, zinc, potassium, phosphorus and selenium. They have many of the B vitamins, are lower on the glycemic index than potatoes and are rich in antioxidants.

Dried legumes produced organically and purchased in bulk are not only super healthy if properly prepared they are also relatively inexpensive. Black beans, lentils and chickpeas contain phytates, which are anti-nutrients. They can bind with essential minerals and keep us from digesting them.

Hence, they should first be neutralized but as the legumes need to be soaked to rehydrate this is easy to do. One needs to just add a Tbsp of something acidic to the water like whey, kefir, lemon juice or vinegar for each cup of legumes.

Beans and chickpeas should be soaked for 24 hours whereas lentils only require a minimum of 7 hours.

In my adventure of trying to achieve independence from the commercial food game I have vastly increased the nutritional quality of meals while cutting my food budget to a fraction of what it was. I purchase my meat from a local who has a small farm where all his stock have access to space, sunlight and pasture.

By substituting a good portion of the normal serving of meat with legumes I not only save a considerable amount of money I can purchase top quality pasture fed meat. With the corporatization of the food industry most people have probably never tasted the meat of animals raised traditionally.

Let me tell you from experience, I would never go back to eating the stuff from the supermarket. The real thing is not only so much healthier it tastes far better. Because of the severe crowding in commercial stock pens pathogens are becoming resistant to all of the antibiotics they shoot into the cows.

Commercial producer are ever resorting to more bizarre methods of trying to get pathogen free meat to the market include bleaching the meat!

For someone who enjoys meat in their meals the secret to substituting a good portion of that with legumes is to start out with a good stock. The farmer I buy my meat from does his own butchering and I can get bones for stock dirt cheap. I use marrow and knuckle bones as well as meaty bones from the breast or neck.

Using a large stock pot with a couple of gallons of water and 6 or 7 pounds of bones I add a cup of vinegar and soak for an hour. After bringing this to a boil I turn it down to simmer and carefully skim off all the foam. It is not only unhealthy to leave it, the foam can ruin the taste.

I add several onions, carrots and sticks of celery roughly chopped. I like to add some fresh thyme, marjoram and basil as well as salt and pepper. After simmering for a couple of days I add a bunch of parsley 10 minutes before turning off the heat.

Don't let the unpleasant looking, as well as smelling, result throw you. Once you have strained out the clear broth and chilled it to remove the congealed fat, you will have a very tasty clear stock. With a good source of beef bone, if you have done everything right, it should gel in the fridge.

This gelatinous property make the stock an excellent aid to digestion as it makes the stock hydrophilic. Hence, like jello it has the unusual property of attracting liquids. When combined with your meat and legumes it attracts digestive juices to the food.

An example of a typical, as well as one of my favourite cheap healthy dishes is what I call chickpea hash. After soaking the chickpeas I cook them for 6 hours in stock.

I use 1 1/3 cups of chickpeas 1 cup of millet soaked for 7 hours with whey, a lb of ground beef and a few veggies, which along with the stock costs me around $10.00. Since I get roughly 10 servings I am making a cheap meal for about $1.00, which is nutritious chock full of protein and vitamins as well as very tasty.

Now that I have the stock I use it, much in the same manner to make soups. Hearty inexpensive soups can be made with lentils, chickpeas, veggies, tomatoes you name it.

As a bowl of soup for lunch is often insufficient to satiate my appetite I often enjoin it with a Texas Caviar salad made from dried beans, onion and bell peppers. I can make the salad in bulk also as it keeps for weeks in the fridge marinating in the vinegar dressing.

Another great way to incorporate beans into your diet is a variation of the typical bacon and eggs. I cut down on the expensive pasture fed bacon by spreading a normal serving over a few sides of refried beans. I cook the bacon and throw it in a food processor with cooked beans and raw onion then fry it in the bacon fat. I add a Tbsp of cooked quinoa to the eggs and make a cheese omelet. Very yummy!

In a world where truths about nutrition have been twisted by commercialism gone awry, Jim, our expert writer, has a passion the truth be known. If you would like to read more of his articles they can be found here.

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