You may think that soak the legumes It only has a practical virtue, that of softening them to facilitate cooking. However, reality —and science— also endorse other virtues of pre-soaking.
It happens with the chickpeas and with any type of bean —not so with lentils—, requiring a prior soaking of at least eight hours before being cooked. Regardless of whether we are going to cook them in an express pot, a pressure cooker or a conventional casserole, almost all the legumes have to be soaked.
The time is also optional, because depending on their size or age, they may need more soaking time, but we can establish a eight to twelve hour period as necessary to facilitate this cooking.
However, it is not only a culinary matter, but also a nutritional quality that should matter to us when soaking legumes. Technique, by the way, that has to be done always with cold water and, if possible, it is better to do it in the fridge to avoid fermentation of the legumes if it is done at room temperature.
However, this is not the nutritional or healthy issue that should import to soak the legumes, but the foam that forms during soaking. Foam that, by the way, we will also see in cooking if we add without soaking the legumes.
What is the foam that forms in legumes when soaking
To explain this foam we must present a concept, the one with the saponinswhich is an antinutrient naturally present in certain legumes such as chickpeas, but also in other foods such as yingseng or quinoa.
As can be interpreted by their name and their reaction, saponins are linked to soapy solutions, since they are a series of water-soluble oily glycosides. When these waters are stirred up, a foaming is producedwhich is what we see in the soaking of our chickpeas, to give an example.
In fact, saponins generate a slightly bitter taste so also soaking the legumes and removing that soaking water will make them more palatable. In any case, the worst thing about saponins is not only their texture or taste, but that they are an antinutrient that reduces iron absorption.
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Not in an exaggerated amount, which is why we should not worry about the antinutrients in legumes and other foods in our diet such as lectin, phytates or oxalates. In any case, cooking the legumes makes the saponins almost completely disappear, which is why we shouldn’t worry too much about them.
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