The Little Black Wonder Bean

Black beans are versatile, cheap, tasty, and loaded with many health benefits, a true wonder bean.  You can get a dynamite recipe for Cuban Black Beans by clicking on the picture below.

I love this recipe for lots of reasons, one of which is that the beans for this recipe cost under $1.00 and my husband and I enjoyed them for two dinners.  Since I used dried beans, the soaking time and cooking time in a slow cooker was long, but the preparation time was pretty minimal.  You can make bean dishes more quickly with canned beans and still have tasty, nutritious and economical meals.  

The nutritional benefits of this bean go on and on - see their article in The World Healthiest Foods.  But the one benefit that I will mention here is that  of their 70% carbohydrate, most is resistant starch.  Why in that important?  It digests very slowly so that it doesn't cause a steep rise in blood sugar and is able to reach the lower part of the intestine where it can feed the good bacteria in our microbiome.