Cosy up to chickpeas’ copious health benefits

NEW YORK – Chickpeas are not peas; they are beans. And more broadly, they are pulses – a category of legumes celebrated for their copious health benefits. Here is what nutrition experts say about chickpeas.

They are a good source of plant-based protein

One cup of chickpeas has 14.5g of protein, around 20 per cent of the recommended daily amount for an average 84kg adult. Protein is the main building block of your muscles, tissues, virus-fighting antibodies and more.

Experts are increasingly touting the importance of incorporating plant-based sources of protein in one’s diet. People who eat more plant-based foods, and less red and processed meats, tend to have lower rates of cardiovascular disease, obesity, high blood pressure and other chronic conditions.

Recently, a committee of leading nutrition experts recommended that the next version of the Dietary Guidelines for Americans place pulses in the same category as meat to encourage people to eat more of them.

Their fibre helps keep cholesterol in check

Chickpeas have something that animal-based protein sources lack: fibre. One cup of chickpeas contains 12.5g, roughly half the recommended daily amount.

Among its numerous health benefits, fibre can help lower low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol – the “bad” form of cholesterol that can build up in arteries, increasing the risk for heart attack and stroke.

Soluble fibre, which is abundant in chickpeas, creates a gummy gel in the intestine, said dietitian Julia Zumpano at Cleveland Clinic Center for Human Nutrition. The gel traps bile, a substance that your liver produces from cholesterol to help digest fat, and prevents the body from reabsorbing it. “It naturally lowers the cholesterol in the body,” she said.

A 2012 study in the British Journal Of Nutrition sorted older adults into two groups – one that incorporated two servings of beans, chickpeas, lentils or peas each day and one that ate their normal diet. After two months, the groups swopped diets for another two months.

Participants who followed the pulse-based eating plan had roughly an 8 per cent decrease in both total cholesterol and LDL cholesterol, relative to those on the regular diet.

They contain key vitamins and minerals

Chickpeas are rich in iron, a mineral that the body needs to transport oxygen. One cup of chickpeas contains about 60 per cent of the recommended daily amounts for adult men and postmenopausal women, and about 25 per cent of that for menstruating women.

Plant-based iron is less readily absorbed by the body than iron from meat, said Dr Emily Ho, a professor of nutrition in the College of Health and director of the Linus Pauling Institute at Oregon State University. Including plenty of vitamin C in your diet can help you absorb more iron, she added.

Chickpeas are also high in folate, a B vitamin that is important for cell replication. Everyone needs folate, but it is especially important during pregnancy, to support the rapid growth of the foetus, Dr Ho said.

One cup of chickpeas has 47 per cent of the recommended amount of folate for pregnant women, and about 70 per cent of that for everyone else.

Ready to dig in

Chickpeas and many other plant-based foods are incomplete sources of protein, meaning they are relatively low in at least one of the essential amino acids that combine to form proteins in your body.

Fortunately, if you pair chickpeas with grains – particularly whole grains – the two foods complement each other to provide enough of all the amino acids you need, said Professor Henry Thompson at the College of Agricultural Sciences and director of the Cancer Prevention Laboratory at Colorado State University.

He suggested eating chickpea stew with a slice of crusty wholewheat bread or spreading hummus on a wholegrain tortilla. NYTIMES