Plant-based foods contain dietary fiber, a component that cannot be fully digested or absorbed by the human digestive system. It contributes significantly to a variety of health benefits, including improved digestion and reduced risk of chronic diseases. For this reason, in order to reach its healthy impact, a person has to eat around 25-35 g per day. However, nowadays, because our diet is no longer like the one followed a few decades ago, its consumption has greatly decreased. For this reason, nutrition and health professionals emphasize the importance of consuming an adequate amount of fiber in order to benefit from the above-mentioned health-promoting properties.
The main sources of dietary fiber are cereals and cereal-based foods, especially when consumed in their whole grain form. In addition to cereals, vegetables and legumes are also excellent sources of dietary fiber. Legumes have a proportion of dietary fiber from 4-6 g/100 g in lentils and from 8-10 g/100 g for beans and chickpeas. Are then the legume our saviours in the fiber intake issue? The response is no. Among other changes in our eating habits, it is worth highlighting the neglect of legumes in our meals, and our legume consumption today seem to be about four times lower than it was 50 years ago.
In Spain, the last ANIBES study, which focused on food and nutrition surveys in Spain, together with the assessment and anthropometric data, macronutrients and micronutrients intake, as well as the level of physical activity and the socioeconomic data of the population has rose some concerns about legume consumption. For instance, although lentils, beans and chickpeas are consumed in similar proportions it is really interesting to observe that legumes are eaten in a very different amount when comparing young (<35 years) and older (>65 years) people. For instance, the first ones eat less than a half of legumes than the last ones. Does it mean that our youth of nowadays will be eating more legumes in the future? I do not think it will be like this. Thus, the loss of the high fiber intake from the past -including legumes consumption-, which is associated with a healthy live and risk reduction in conditions such as coronary heart disease (17-31%), type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer (10-22%) or just body weight, cholesterol and blood pressure management, seem to be compromised. This fact, together with others lifestyles and habits in our current society could lead to higher rates of these diseases in the future.
So, lets’ start to rethink our legume consumption, to further promote their consumption, to enrol healthy professionals to believe more in them, to look for chefs using them in their recipes, to include legumes in fancy habits, to find the best legume-influencers, or what it would be needed to increase their consumption, and therefore their healthy impact in our life.
University Associate Professor in the Section of Physiology. Department of Biochemistry and Physiology. Faculty of Pharmacy and Food Sciences. University of Barcelona
Researcher in the "Autoimmunity, Immunonutrition and Tolerance Group".
Director of the Institute of Research in Nutrition and Food Safety (INSA-UB)