Snap bean

Phaseolus vulgaris

legume · vegetable

Young, fleshy pods of the common bean, picked before the seeds swell: green, wax or flat beans, whose consumption grew in the 20th century. Always cooked.

Origin

European selection

Season (United States)

May to September · grows in your region

Preparation

Always cooked: raw, they contain phasin, a lectin that upsets the gut. Its skin is eaten, and that is where its polyphenols sit: worth keeping, then — but under running water, rubbing it, which is what takes off most of what settles there, organic or not. Its lectins need a real boil, not just warmth.

Molecules

What slows things down Lectins

Did you know?

In English it is still called a string bean, although most modern varieties no longer have the string.