National Nutrition Week 2016: Love Your Beans – Eat Dry Beans, Peas & Lentils
So much nutrition advice is centred on what we need to eat less of, but when it comes to pulses – dry beans, peas and lentils – the message is about eating more!
This year, the United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations (UN) has declared that 2016 is the ‘International Year of Pulses’, promoting pulses as nutritious seeds for a sustainable future.
Every year South Africa celebrates National Nutrition Week from 9 to 15 October, and aligning to the FAO, this year’s campaign is ‘Love your beans – eat dry beans, peas and lentils!’ which echoes the country’s food-based dietary guideline to ‘eat dry beans, split peas, lentils and soya regularly’.
Health Benefits
“There’s a good reason to put dry beans, peas, lentils and soya into the spotlight. Unfortunately, they are largely overlooked as they are often seen as a ‘poor man’s food’ and they can take a long time to cook. We should be eating them, along with a variety of foods, at least four times a week; and yet, many of us hardly include them in our diets. There’s just not enough awareness of how they contribute to healthy lifestyles, or how to use them well to make delicious meals,” says Ms Lynn Moeng-Mahlangu, Cluster Manager of Health Promotion, Nutrition and Oral Health at the National Department of Health.
“However, this National Nutrition Week, we hope to share tips and recipes to inspire South Africans to eat more beans, peas, lentils and soya. For information on these tips, access the National Nutrition Week website”. Read more…
