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Health Conditions Discover Plan Connect. Fruits vs. Legumes rank next in importance to cereals as human food sources. They contain more protein than any other vegetable and thus are akin to animal meat in food value. Fats and carbohydrates are also present. The proteins occur as small granules in the same cells with the starch grains. The high protein content is related to the presence on the roots of many legumes tubercles that hold nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These bacteria are able to convert atmospheric nitrogen into nitrates.
This augments the nitrogenous material available for the plants. The legumes belong to the family Leguminosae, which is noted for having a special kind of fruit, a legume, which is a pod that opens along two sutures when the seeds are ripe.
Over 11, species of legumes are known, and many are of importance as industrial, medicinal or food plants. They have been cultivated and used for food for centuries worldwide. The seeds are of greatest importance. As is the case with other dry seeds, the low water content and impervious seed coats enhance their value for long-term storage and increase their longevity. Legumes are easy to grow, they mature rapidly and they are highly nutritious.
Not only are proteins abundant but also they possess minerals and vitamin B. They are absolutely essential in a vegetarian diet. Before the discovery of potatoes, they constituted a greater part of the food in Europe. Legumes have a high-energy content and are particularly well suited for use in cold weather or where physical exertion is pronounced.
The immature fruits also serve as food as demonstrated by garden beans and peas. Because all parts of the plant are rich in protein, legumes are valuable as field and forage crops. When plowed under they are an excellent fertilizer and greatly increase the nitrogenous content of soil.
The Common pea, Pisum sativum , is native to Southern Europe and has been cultivated since before the Christian era. Peas were well known to the Romans and Greeks. The earliest colonists brought peas to America. Peas are annual, glaucous; tendril bearing, climbing or trailing plants, with white or colored flowers and pendulous pods.
Although originating in warm regions they thrive where there is a cool summer and abundant moisture. In Mediterranean climates they thrive during winter and spring months. Field Peas. The gray pea of Greece and the Levant is thought to have given rise to Field Peas. They have colored flowers and angular colored seeds and are very hardy, withstanding frost and altitudes up to 8, ft. Field peas are grown for seed that is used for human consumption in the form of pea meal or split peas. They are also an excellent grain for livestock.
The plants are sued for forage, silage and green manuring. Garden Peas. Garden peas have white flowers and round smooth or wrinkled seeds that are yellow or white in color.
They contain more sugar than field peas and the seeds are eaten green or are used for canning. For canning peas are usually harvested with a mowing machine. Pea-cannery refuse is a valuable livestock feed. In some varieties the pods are fleshy and crisp and are consumed as well as the seeds. Garden peas wee used by Gregor Mendel in his experiments in plant genetics.
Chickpeas Garbanzo Beans. Chickpeas, Cicer arietinum , are native to southern Europe where they are still extensively grown. They are an important food in many parts of Africa, Asia and Central America.
India has grown an amount that is equal to the sugar cane acreage of the whole world. The plant is a branching, bushy annual, which mature in 90 days. It is well adapted to arid and semiarid regions. Chickpeas are the best legumes for human consumption as the seeds are very nutritious.
The early Egyptians, Hebrews and Greeks grew them. The sparse foliage is poisonous so the plant cannot be used for forage. The green pods are infrequently consumed and the seeds are used as a substitute for and as an adulterant of coffee. Cowpeas, Vigna sinensis , are more closely related to beans than to peas. They are vigorous bushy or trailing summer annuals with curious, cylindrical pendant pods.
The plant continues to grow if environmental conditions are suitable. The cowpea is a very old crop, probably originating in Central Asia, although it has been grown in Southeastern Asia for over 2, years. It was introduced into the tropics and subtropics of the world, reaching the West Indies in the 17th Century and North America in the 18th Century.
The seeds are used as feed for poultry and cattle, and they may serve as a coffee substitute. The main value is as a forage crop, as a cover crop to prevent erosion and as a green manure. Cowpeas are important in India, China and the southern United States. It is susceptible to frost and is confined to warm humid areas in a sandy or loamy soil. Cajan Peas. This is a Pigeon pea, Cajanus cajan , that was first domesticated in Asia or Africa and is now widely cultivated in the tropics and subtropics, especially in the East Indies, the West Indies and India.
There are many varieties. The plant is an erect shrub. Both the immature and mature seeds have been used for human and animal food for thousands of years. In modern times it has been developed as a forage crop and rivals alfalfa in importance. It is drought resistant, grows well in any kind of soil, matures rapidly and in other ways is highly desirable. Garden Beans. Garden, Pinto or Kidney beans , Phaseolus vulgaris , are indigenous to America. They were probably domesticated by the Incas and were early used by the Amerindians of both South and North America.
In modern times the young pods string or snap beans , the unripe seeds shell beans and the dried ripe seeds are all used for human consumption. The whole plant is used for forage. Beans are low, erect or twining annuals with small white or colored flowers, trifoliate leaves and slender pods. They are grown as either bush or pole beans and over 1, varieties are cultivated. Both groups have green-podded and wax-podded varieties.
The commercial dried bean is of more recent origin. It was first grown in in New York State. Much of the bean crop is canned. Even though beans will grow on a variety of soils, a fertile soil, rich in lime, is required for a good yield.
A warmer climate than for peas is desirable, and crop rotation should be practiced. On large farms machines harvest the crop and the beans are dried, stored and threshed before marketing. Dried pinto beans must be cooked without salt or additives until they are soft, after which condiments such as peppers, tomato, salt, soy, molasses, etc. The culls are fed to livestock and the straw is used for forage. Presently these beans are grown worldwide.
Lima Beans. Lima beans, Phaseolus limensis , are native to Peru and Brazil and have been grown in South America for centuries. Originally a perennial they are usually treated as annuals. Lima beans require warmer weather and higher humidity than Garden Beans.
The original types were pole beans, the bush limas arising later as mutations. Either green or dried beans are consumed and a large quantity is processed. In addition to the large variety there is a smaller form, the Sieva Bean Phaseolus lunatus , also native to tropical America. An excellent crop of Lima beans was produced in coastal Southern California until the land was diverted to housing development. Other Kinds of Beans. Mung beans were grown in India in ancient times and are still an important crop.
The small oval seeds are highly nutritious and the green pods are also consumed. There are over varieties grown in China and other parts of Asia. The Mung Bean is grown in North America principally as a forage plant. The Adsuki Bean , P. Soybeans, Glycine max , are small, bushy, erect or prostrate annual plants that resemble the cowpea.
The crop is much easier to handle for it does not become tangled, matures earlier and has a higher yield, produces a better seed and can be threshed. The seeds all mature at the same time. The soybean is one of the oldest cultivated crops. It was grown in China centuries before the first written records in 2, B. It is indigenous to Southeastern Asia, where over 1, varieties are grown.
Soybean is the most important legume in Asia there it is consumed fresh, fermented or dried and is used everywhere in the daily diet to supplement rice. The seed is the richest natural vegetable food known.
In tropical areas, especially Indonesia, soybeans are boiled and then fermented by addition of a mold to yield a food known as Te mpe. Soybean sauce, made from cooked beans, roasted wheat flour, salt and ferment, is widely used. The flour, with a low carbohydrate and high protein content, is an excellent food for diabetics. Soybean sprouts are a favorite food in the Asian diet. Although soybean oil has been extensively used commercially for frying and in margarines, research in has associated the development of autism with this oil.
The soybean has ever increasing other uses worldwide. It is an important aid to agriculture, a valuable commercial crop, a good livestock food and the source of numerous raw materials for use in industry. Soybean oil is an important drying oil. Soybean protein is extensively used to produce the foam liquid used for extinguishing oil fires and as the source of a synthetic fiber, similar to casein fibers.
It is of greatest importance in the North Central states, with Illinois producing over 40 percent of the total crop. Soybeans are grown for hay, silage, and green manure, as well as for the seeds, and hundreds of varieties are known. It can be grown under a variety of soil and moisture conditions but requires a rather warm temperature and is susceptible to frost. Broad Beans.
It is grown as a forage crop as well as for the seeds that furnish food for both humans and livestock. The plant is a strong erect annual, feet tall, with flat pods and large seeds. Walnuts inhabit green fruit on temperate trees in the genus Juglans.
Most of the seeds that end up on American dining room tables come from the English walnut tree, Juglans regia [ PDF ]. About 20 pine tree species—including the Italian stone pine—produce big seeds that get harvested en masse. Those seeds are removed from cones in a meticulous process, which accounts for their high selling prices. They come from a hardened 4-topound pod containing up to two dozen seeds that might become trees someday.
The pods are so hefty, getting bonked on the head by a falling one is enough to stun or even kill you. Surprisingly, Brazil Nuts can also be fairly radioactive thanks to the trees' roots, which grow deep within radium-rich soil. Gympie, Queensland, has an odd claim to fame: Approximately 70 percent of all the macadamia nuts on Earth are descended from trees grown in the Australian town. Related: Why are bananas berries, but strawberries aren't?
Virtually all other "nuts," however, don't make the cut. Peanuts, for instance, usually have two seeds and easily break open, Jernstedt said. Because they grow in a pod, they're technically a legume , a family of plants that produce their fruit often beans in a pod, and have more in common with snow peas than actual nuts. Almonds, cashews and pecans, on the other hand, are actually seeds inside a drupe, or a stone fruit.
Instead of the hard outer shell of a true nut, a drupe has a fleshy outer layer surrounding a pit that contains the seed, just as a cherry or a peach does.
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