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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I got a stomach lesion once and it turned out to be cooked tomatoes causing it. They're very acidic. So for the last two years I have had to cut right back on cooked tomatoes of any sort. The lesion has cleared up and now I can have cooked tomatoes again on special occasions.
So back to the baked beans, woo-hoo. And vegan pizza, way-hay.
Biona do by far the best baked beans, taste wise, and they come in glass jars rather than toxic-lined cans. The only real drawback is the price, which is scandalous.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I do a bit of both.
Buying the dried ones is great because you get more for your money, the organic ones are cheaper and canned stuff is supposed to be dodgy because of contamination from the metal. But they do require planning and effort. The amount of times I've had beans in soak and then ended up going out for a meal/working/whatever and then having bowls of rapidly going off beans everywhere..
Like someone mentioned a few posts up, most lentils don't require soaking and cook a lot faster so I've recently been using them instead.
TInned Baked Beans are awesome though. My favorite ones are the Whole Earth ones. In health food shops & holland & barrett they tend to be £1+ but they are cheaper in Waitrose.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I think the issue is with the plastic lining of cans, not the metal, f2097, though tomato sauce being so acidic it, could possible corrode an un-lined can. Whichever, you cannot (!) win.
From an overall perspective, it may seem like bulk-buying organic dried beans win - but then you have any energy used in drying them and the energy used to cook them: a large plant doing canned beans may be more energy-efficient. Difficult. De Rit may have it right with beans in glass (and there are other producers who use glass - some Polish brands I've seen, for instance) but glass is heavy to transport. Sigh...
Then you get the jibes from meat eaters that these vegans are producing greenhouse gases.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I'm not keen on cans with plastic linings either, but most of the ones we buy (beans and tomatoes) don't appear to have them. The linings are white aren't they, or can you get invisible versions?
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
They might be doing invisible ones, who knows?¿!¡
But yes, the linings are usually white and sinister...:devil:
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I'll try to pay attention when I open my next few cans and record those that do/don't appear to have linings, in case anyone's interested.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Like DavidT says though, you can't win. If the cans are lined there will be people who worry about the lining, if they aren't lined there will be people who worry about the metal.
I just rely on the fact that billions of cans of food are sold and people around me aren't dropping dead all over the place.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Here is an excellent article about baked beans and the white lining, plus of course an ethically-graded list of producers.
It's also reminded me that it's Biona who make the best beans, not De Rit: I've altered my earlier post to correct that.
A freudian slip there, I think, as Biona are a little out of favour with me at the moment because of the large number of non-vegan products they produce. I'm asking them to at least replace honey with syrup of some kind, as De Rit have done, even if they have difficultly getting rid of eggs and milk.
Biona do make some great products but small changes like getting rid of honey would bring vegans to some of them.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Quote:
Risker
Like DavidT says though, you can't win. If the cans are lined there will be people who worry about the lining, if they aren't lined there will be people who worry about the metal.
I just rely on the fact that billions of cans of food are sold and people around me aren't dropping dead all over the place.
Quite. I think history shows un-lined cans are ok long-term: the linings are just another one of those things we could really do without.
They said they brought in the linings because some foods were getting tainted by the cans. This is a classic modern example of trying to solve one problem by creating another.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Regarding baked beans, we normally buy the Whole Earth ones, which as noted are widely available, or sometimes the organic version of Waitrose own brand (I think it is).
I see the Whole Earth ones have been marked down for salt content on that league table but as we probably only eat them about once a month I'm not going to worry about it too much from a purely personal point of view, although obviously it's not so good if people are shovelling them down their children (or themselves) in vast quantities.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
When I had to forego tomato products, I bought Nomato baked beans on occasion.
They're not the same but I like them and still buy them. Anyone tried them and liked them? They're an 'acquired' taste, I think.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
When I got up this morning, I did not think that I would be up at 10:30 reading an a buyers guide to baked beans and then writing in an internet forum about that article :S
I've never heard of De Rit? And I didn't realize Nomato made beans, I really like their ketchup. Its more like tomato puree than ketchup and has a 'sun dried' taste to it. Its quite hard to find though.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Oh no I've just noticed the bar at the side of that baked bean article linked a few posts up. It has articles on how ethical (or not) other food stuffs are and ranks the brands .. Actually that website is huge and has sections on all sorts of other products, along with boycotts, blogs and the like... I have a feeling I'm going to end up getting lost reading all that for hours upon end :/
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Quote:
f2097
And I didn't realize Nomato made beans, I really like their ketchup. Its more like tomato puree than ketchup and has a 'sun dried' taste to it. Its quite hard to find though.
Their pasta sauce is, errmm, different too. I like it but my OH doesn't. It's quite a sour sauce, in a nice way of course.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Due to the economy these days and the fact that food prices are soaring where I live, my mother decided to start using dried beans. My grandmother gave her this interesting tip to make cooking beans from scratch easier. I'll use chickpeas as an example. My mom will soak a ton of chickpeas for the recommended 8 hours/overnight. She'll then drain them and portion them into individual freezer bags. She'll freeze them and whenever she needs chickpeas, she'll just take out a freezer bag and use those chickpeas. They'll cook in 30-50 minutes. Nifty idea my grandmother had.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I believe a pinch of bicarbonate of soda will speed up cooking times.
However here's what I often do:
soak the beans overnight
throw away the soaking water
put the beans in a pressure cooker
add just enough water to cover them completely
put in two or three drops of oil to stop any 'foaming' (which may or may not occur)
when the pressure cooker reaches normal pressure, back off the heat
cook for between three and and four minutes, maintaining pressure
turn off the heat and let the pressure come off naturally (release the pressure straight away and the beans explode)
any unused beans, when cool, can be spread on a tray and frozen, ready for use
follow this method for marrowfat peas but cook for longer (perhaps eight minutes) and let the pressure off fast under cold water for mushy peas
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Quote:
DavidT
A freudian slip there, I think, as Biona are a little out of favour with me at the moment because of the large number of non-vegan products they produce. I'm asking them to at least replace honey with syrup of some kind, as De Rit have done, even if they have difficultly getting rid of eggs and milk.
A reply from Biona:
Quote:
Dear Mr Taylor
Many thanks for your suggestions. I will pass your email on to the
product development manager.
We are currently selling quite a few products where we use agave syrup
as the sweetener, for example: Biona Organic Cranberries in Agave Syrup.
Please do not hesitate to contact us again with any further comments or
questions.
Kind regards
Bertel Haugen
Windmill Organics
Customer Care
34A Clifton Road
Kingston
Surrey, KT2 6PH
phone: +44 (0)208 547 2775
fax: +44(0)208 546 9942
www.windmillorganics.com
It's a start I suppose. As an example of what I've noticed, their 'wild berry crisp' is delicious but I won't buy it as it contains honey. It already contains wheat syrup and honey is next-to-last on the ingredients list, so I can't see why they shouldn't feck it out.
They would gain at least one more customer.
Perhaps if anyone else out there wants to get in touch with them?
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I'll fire off some emails, even though I've never had any of their products.
given there is a massive depletion of the bee population which is in part being fuelled by honey and an increase in the capturing of wild hives for honey production (I kid you not) anything that can be done reduce the use of honey must be right now
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
And then people query why we would prefer not to consume it!
Where we are, there seems to be a healthy wild bee population, so pockets will survive.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Quote:
bradders
...and an increase in the capturing of wild hives for honey production (I kid you not)...
bradders: can you provide a link for this? It sounds like useful information to have. Thanks.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Google
capturing of wild hives for honey production
you will get lots of hits, we could chat more on this in a honey thread, of which there are a few on this forum.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Cans or home cooked? - my can opener is worn out! :D
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I always buy dried beans and soak overnight before cooking. I do a pound or two at a time, and freeze what I don't eat right away. That way I can just pull out of the freezer any sort of beans I like, make some brown rice, and steam some frozen veggies and I have a complete meal. Because they're bulky, heavy, more fragile, and more expensive, I save cans for things that don't come in dried versions.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Cans and lots of them. Rich in good essential dietary stuff. Fast food for vegans! Love 'em. :) Especially the organic ones from Biona with no added salt or sugar. They are heavy and I have no car so I order them online from goodnessdirect.co.uk in bulk (no postage fees on orders over £35). The Biona range has some good organic bean varieties. The Puy lentils are nice. A favourite snack is a tin of cold chickpeas with some ketchup on eaten with half a dish of sage and onion stuffing rings. You might be surprised how nice that is. I find chickpeas to be softer cold, esp. when they are large (small ones can be much less fun). A tin of mixed beans (the Natura Organic brand are nice) are also delicious cold.
Red Kidney beans added to a mash of spuds, carrots and leaks with a large dollop of organic Pure: just gorgeous.
I have always loved baked beans on toast but find most too salty or too strongly flavoured. I drain most of the tomato juice from the tin before putting them in the pan to try to reduce the salt. Tins of JS organic baked beans recently vanished from our JS (as did JS organic oven chips). OK, there's a credit crunch but surely food should be the last stuff folk compromise on. If they take them off the shelves, we don't even have the choice anymore. :mad:
Couldn't find ordinary tin openers in the local shops. Had to buy them (new) off ebay! Always take some when you travel. In some places, the only vegan stuff you can get is a tin of beans.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Yes, the Biona ones I think are probably the best. They're also the most expensive, I find: there you go.
Hey, vegandave! Welcome to the forum. Happy veganising.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Tesco's value kidney beans - 19p per tin, very cheap, quick, and tasty! Though they're not as good quality as the 60p + tins, they make more ecomnomical sense. I find cooking beans too much hassle, yeah I know I could cook loads and loads and loads and freeze them, but I really cannot be bothered with all that!
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Canned, mainly. For reasons too long-winded to explain. :D
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
When I feel like a nice, big, easy breakfast, I like to go for baked beans on toast.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Being from the hills of wv regular home cooked beans are almost always on the menue two or three times a week.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I used to be a canned girl... but now making my way over to dried. I love black beans, and they are so expensive here in the UK I can't justify buying the canned types. Now I have a pressure cooker, it's really no bother to make a batch or two up. When Mr_Derious gets me my new freezer, I'll be able to make even move to freeze down.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
I usually buy both - canned for convenience and dried for variety. Dried beans make such wonderful homemade soups, thick and stewy and delicious.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
Quote:
everdream
Tesco's value kidney beans - 19p per tin, very cheap, quick, and tasty! Though they're not as good quality as the 60p + tins, they make more ecomnomical sense. I find cooking beans too much hassle, yeah I know I could cook loads and loads and loads and freeze them, but I really cannot be bothered with all that!
19p? Is that 19 pence? I'm trying to convert the currency here, having no luck. Your money system makes no sense.
Anyways-
A can of organic beans beans here costs me about $3.00 CAD. A can of no-name brand (definitely not organic) beans cost about $1.50 CAD. A small package of no-name brand dried beans is about $1.25 CAD, which makes about 2 cans worth of beans once cooked. Expensive, is the point I'm getting at, especially the organic ones!
Also- when I cook dried beans, I can't get the as soft as canned. I soak them overnight, then add to whichever dish I'm making, and allow them to cook a bit more. Any suggestions?
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
^ Yes, it's 19 pence, how does our money system make no sense? Tinned beans here for the most part are incredibly cheap, it just doesn't make financial sense to cook up dried ones, it'd cost you more.
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
As compared to dollars, I'm just not used to it. I was tired when I wrote that.
It seems canned ("tinned", lol) beans are way cheaper on your side of the pond than mine. :-)
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Re: Beans: Cans or home cooked?
We do our own beans - "baked" or otherwise - most of the time.
I like to buy dried beans in custom quantities, rather than pre-packed bags, so I encourage a local shop to stock loose beans and chick peas. Firstly, it means we don't have extra rubbish to deal with such as cans or plastic bags (we take our own bags) and secondly we can buy as few or as many as we want. We don't have a rubbish collection so we have to consider everything we buy from a disposal point of view; all the unwanted stuff has to be stored till we make a worthwhile trip to a recycling centre.
Anyway, after soaking beans etc, I cook them using a pressure cooker. The most any beans ever take is just over four minutes from reaching pressure, then the heat is turned off and the beans allowed to cool (quick cooling would burst them, which is sometimes what you want!). A few drops of oil in the cooking liquid prevents any foaming.
After cooling, I'll make a meal using some of the beans, put another batch in a sealed container in the fridge for a meal two or three days later, and any others go in the freezer, on a tray to stop them sticking together, before putting in a container.
It might be more complex than simply buying cans but I enjoy the process and, as I said, we don't have to buy unwanted packaging. We have gluts of tomatoes at certain times of year and there is nothing quite like making your own 'baked' beans.
I insist on organic ingredients every time.