WHICH IS THE GASSIEST BEAN OF ALL?

August 26, 2021 11:18 AM

Tips to make beans gassier.
posted by aniola (51 comments total)

The trick is to use dried beans and avoid soaking them beforehand. Boiling them in water also causes the skins to loosen, releasing oligosaccharides. Avoid eating beans with anything else as other nutrients can assist in better digestion. This means absolutely no spices and herbs.

So, basically eat them raw. Which can be dangerous. I suppose letting it rip in a hospital bed would be great fun, if such beds weren't already filled to capacity by unvaccinated Covid patients. There are other ways to make yourself fart uncontrollably.
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 11:33 AM on August 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

I honestly had to check to see which was posted first - this FPP, or this AskMe. (The AskMe came first.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 11:48 AM on August 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

> They sucked his brains out!:
"So, basically eat them raw."

no, you still boil them, just don't soak and drain beforehand. this leaves the oligosaccarides in the boil water for your gut flora to go to town on later.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 11:49 AM on August 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

I can't find the exact comment, but there is one mefite's story about making beans in an instant pot without soaking them first. It lead to the most mighty of intestinal winds.

If I was going to take revenge on someone this is exactly what I'd feed them.
posted by Alison at 12:33 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Apparently Jerusalem Artichoke is really good at giving one the farts.

I've never experienced it though.
posted by ArgentCorvid at 12:37 PM on August 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

I have. They are. I won't even have one bite anymore.
posted by BuddhaInABucket at 12:53 PM on August 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

Avoid eating beans with anything else as other nutrients can assist in better digestion. This means absolutely no spices and herbs.

Counterpoint: add all the garlic and onions you can find
posted by polecat at 12:53 PM on August 26, 2021 [9 favorites]

I love this article, but on a more serious note: if you train your gut to digest the pulses and brassica and alliums, you may be a happier person. I have definitely gone through a farty transition, but it was worth it.
posted by mumimor at 1:30 PM on August 26, 2021 [6 favorites]

on a more serious note: if you train your gut to digest the pulses and brassica and alliums, you may be a happier person.

Counterargument that there are three or four of the brassicas which, if I attempt to digest them, would make me and those around me very, very unhappy. (Fortunately the other brassicas are no problem.)
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:57 PM on August 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I have definitely gone through a farty transition

so many questions.. "but it was worth it" am I reading a tone of relief? regret? must 'farty' be a transition and never a destination? I aspire to a hippo-esque weaponizing of the fart, minus the solids, because life can deal you people who need that kind of hostility. and siblings, it's always good to keep your siblings respectful of your boundaries.
posted by elkevelvet at 2:02 PM on August 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

This brand of bean soup is hands down the gassiest one on the planet.
posted by jeremias at 2:20 PM on August 26, 2021

The very emperor of fart-producing bean products is aquafaba: the starchy liquid you get in a can of chickpeas. It's become recently used to make vegan meringues because it whips up stiff and concupiscent like a good egg white. Unfortunately, it's mostly composed of oligosaccharides, so the results can be very gassy indeed.

If you want the beanz-meanz-fartz compound gone from your pulses, rinse 'em, then soak 'em in water with (scientific term) quite a lot of baking soda for a couple of hours. You'll have to rinse them a few more times to get rid of the brackish taste, but they'll be much reduced in the flatus department. The slightly faddish cookbook I learned this trick from (Dr Gabe's) also cautioned against consuming any of the rinse water, as it would be chock-full of oligosaccharides. I instantly warmed slightly to the stern Dr Gabe, as that paragraph I recognize as being written by a fellow bloke who tried something ill-advised and found out the hard way.
posted by scruss at 2:20 PM on August 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

The real trick to making gas of beans is to rarely eat beans. After decades of bean-based being, my sweetie and I can enjoy the rich broth of any legume cooked in its own soaking-water and no gas ensues. I don’t know what’s happening to the oligosaccharides, maybe our gut flora have just gotten bored and learned to ignore them.

However. A few of those decades were vegetarian, and when we reintroduced meat we discovered the most dreadful flatulence. Low volume, but a stench surpassing that of dead things in the ditch. Leave-the-building bad. Eventually our guts caught up, but they had to relearn every species of meat separately, which surprised me.

SO there’s a gas-maximizing diet cycle that switches from one restricted set of foodstuffs to the next just long enough to bewilder the gut microbes, zwatmsayn.
posted by clew at 2:47 PM on August 26, 2021 [10 favorites]

Bean farts are all air and no substance. Onion farts are where the smart money is.
posted by pipeski at 3:11 PM on August 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

TAGGART: [waving his hat] I’d say you boys had had enough
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 3:35 PM on August 26, 2021 [7 favorites]

Human beans, amirite?

We're the gassiest beans of all.
posted by wilberforce at 3:36 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Dried apricots are the way forward for sumptuous anal hellbelches.
posted by biffa at 3:43 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Talking of belches. A couple of years ago I had a meeting at a supplier's offices. As the meeting was due at 2pm, I arrived a bit early for a leisurely lunch in town. I spotted a Turkish place and picked up some lovely chargrilled lamb with onion, salad and a spicy sauce wrapped up in a nice chewy flatbread . Enjoyed it very much, sitting on a park bench in a quiet spot. Made it to the meeting in plenty of time. Expected to be meeting our account manager there, but for some reason they wanted to make a show of bringing out various senior people for a get-to-know-the-client meeting, which happened to be in a small glass-walled meeting-room. Probably because we'd just given them lots of money for stuff.

About ten minutes into the very jolly meeting I stifled a rather enormous burp, managing to not give anything away. It was one of those where your cheeks puff up but you somehow manage to keep your mouth closed and it tickles your nose looking for another way out. I was understandably pleased with myself, until the chap next to me flinched a bit. I could see the dawning realisation on people's faces as the scent of spiced lamb crossed the room like a wave. They all held it together though. What else could they do? I probably have a nickname there now.
posted by pipeski at 4:01 PM on August 26, 2021 [13 favorites]

aniola, between the two posts, you are going to develop a reputation.
posted by Comet Bug at 4:27 PM on August 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: Much reduced in the flatus department.
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 4:46 PM on August 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

Metafilter: the way forward for sumptuous anal hellbelches
posted by They sucked his brains out! at 4:48 PM on August 26, 2021 [8 favorites]

aniola, between the two posts, you are going to develop a reputation.

Are you secretly Johnny Wallflower? Wordshore?
posted by GenjiandProust at 5:40 PM on August 26, 2021 [4 favorites]

You're all really overthinking this.
posted by scratch at 5:42 PM on August 26, 2021 [10 favorites]

For the next round of themes, I suggest making posts in the style of other MeFites.
posted by theora55 at 6:39 PM on August 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I am Johnny Wallflower AND Wordshore. Any IRL appearances were hired actors.
posted by aniola at 6:54 PM on August 26, 2021 [5 favorites]

Dog bless you, aniola.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 7:25 PM on August 26, 2021

This is just going to make the climate crisis worse, really.
posted by hippybear at 7:44 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

How to lose 15 pounds in 7 days, which according to the commenters is quite germane
posted by Countess Elena at 8:05 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

Good to see that I'm not the only one here wondering about aquafaba. I always thow the liquid away from tinned chickpeas and rinse the beans before using them to get rid of those pesky oligosaccharides. So I;m wondering now, having never tried it, does aquafaba make good meringues, but good meringues that make you fart? Because that's not what I expect from a meringue.
posted by Fuchsoid at 8:30 PM on August 26, 2021 [3 favorites]

This article claims that "the loudest fart blasted over 190 decibels", which... considering your eardrums would rupture at 150dB from standing next to a jet engine... well, there'd be a lot of other rupturing involved here.
posted by cacophony at 8:32 PM on August 26, 2021 [1 favorite]

I used aquafaba for a bit to make home-made vegan mayo (quite tasty!) and I don't remember anything specific experiences, but it might have been lost in the noise. ba dum tsh
posted by temancl at 10:39 PM on August 26, 2021 [2 favorites]

I figure a fart at 190db (blasting past a chainsaw at 115db and jet aircraft turbines at >140db) must be some kind of horrible, devilish whistle. Like a steam train pipe turned to a furious colonic pump
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 4:49 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

This is a well-timed post, following the documentary on TV about Lush Botanist.
posted by Wordshore at 5:00 AM on August 27, 2021

"must 'farty' be a transition and never a destination?"
-posted by elkevelvet

I love this site.
posted by Grither at 5:14 AM on August 27, 2021 [3 favorites]

I have made delicious homemade hummus (and hummus-like non-chickpea dip) with the aquafaba intact. I just told people in the other thread that I didn't think that discarding soaking/cooking water makes that much of a difference, but now that I think about it I may be an unreliable narrator. I do remember it being much more wind-inducing than storebought hummus -- but I also ate a lot more of it in one go, so it's hard to tell.

Fortunately I live alone.
posted by confluency at 5:19 AM on August 27, 2021

On the danger of eating undercooked beans, some better

links

The big things are that kidney beans, specifically, have an especially high level of phytohaemagglutinin, and that cooking beans in a crockpot doesn’t get them hot enough to denature the phytohaemagglutinin—they need to boil for at least 10 minutes, though some sources say longer to be sure.
posted by needs more cowbell at 5:28 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

needs more cowbell: cooking beans in a crockpot doesn’t get them hot enough to denature the phytohaemagglutinin—they need to boil for at least 10 minutes, though some sources say longer to be sure.

Steve Sando of Rancho Gordo always recommends bringing the pot of beans to a full boil for ten minutes or so "to show them who's boss". Not sure he's ever claimed a reduction in gassiness though - it's just a recommendation for getting the best texture out of the beans.
posted by Surely This at 6:18 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

So I;m wondering now, having never tried it, does aquafaba make good meringues, but good meringues that make you fart?

I had been idly wondering about trying to use aquafaba for meringues just to see if it would work. This possibility has singlehandedly changed my mind about that.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 6:30 AM on August 27, 2021 [1 favorite]

> EmpressCallipygos:
"So I;m wondering now, having never tried it, does aquafaba make good meringues, but good meringues that make you fart?

I had been idly wondering about trying to use aquafaba for meringues just to see if it would work. This possibility has singlehandedly changed my mind about that."

There was this fp post a while back that says yes!
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:04 AM on August 27, 2021

wait. that one was also by aniola!
posted by ArgentCorvid at 7:06 AM on August 27, 2021 [2 favorites]

BeanFilter: Like a steam train pipe turned to a furious colonic pump
posted by GenjiandProust at 7:13 AM on August 27, 2021

This is why a one pound bag of most beans contain exactly 239 beans. Because adding one more would make it 240!
posted by indianbadger1 at 10:03 AM on August 27, 2021 [9 favorites]

^ how many years have you waited for this thread to come along
posted by elkevelvet at 10:23 AM on August 27, 2021 [7 favorites]

there are two kinds of people in the world and the other kind of people, if they even opened this thread, stopped reading comments a long time ago.

the rest of you, you're my people
posted by elkevelvet at 10:54 AM on August 27, 2021 [5 favorites]

So I;m wondering now, having never tried it, does aquafaba make good meringues, but good meringues that make you fart?

I do wonder if the ratio of easily digestible sugars to indigestible sugars in a meringue will leave your microbiome saying "eh, might as well digest than one, too", and leave things more digestible.
posted by ambrosen at 11:25 AM on August 27, 2021

A double-blind, placebo-controlled, randomized human study assessing the capacity of a novel galacto-oligosaccharide mixture in reducing travellers' diarrhoea

Conclusion: don't throw out the fart-inducing water if you're going traveling soon.
posted by aniola at 11:26 AM on August 27, 2021 [6 favorites]

So I read recently that like 95% of people living in the US aren't getting enough fiber. This is the perfect time to introduce more fiber! Everyone's wearing masks! And if they aren't wearing masks, maybe if everyone else starts eating enough fiber, they'll be inspired. It's the beans-and-greens revolution. Join me.
posted by aniola at 11:16 AM on August 29, 2021 [2 favorites]

So I read recently that like 95% of people living in the US aren't getting enough fiber. This is the perfect time to introduce more fiber! Everyone's wearing masks! And if they aren't wearing masks, maybe if everyone else starts eating enough fiber, they'll be inspired. It's the beans-and-greens revolution. Join me.

You know, if
One person, just one person does it they may think he's really sick and
They won't take him. And if two people, two people do it, in harmony,
They may think they're both faggots and they won't take either of them.
And three people do it, three, can you imagine, three people walking in
Singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant eating more fiber, wearing a mask and walking out. They may think it's an
Organization. And can you, can you imagine fifty people a day, I said
Fifty people a day walking in singin a bar of Alice's Restaurant eating more fiber, wearing a mask and
Walking out. And friends they may thinks it's a movement.

Not so sure it would be a revolution.... good chances there would be a movement, though.
posted by a non mouse, a cow herd at 2:05 PM on August 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

Can someone please put that to music?
posted by aniola at 5:58 PM on August 29, 2021 [1 favorite]

A piece of schoolyard graffiti near where I live recently inspired me to write this little poem. If your sense of humour is as childish as my own, it may amuse you:

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Chalked up on the playground wall,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Free advice for one and all,

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Silent farts, I think it means,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
(Also powered by sprouts and beans),

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Noiseless burst of noxious air,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
No-one knows who left it there,

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Bobby's planning further fun,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Brewing up another one,

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Smugly, he lets loose the next,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Foul air spreading from his kecks,

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Birds fall choking from the skies,
"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Stench so bad it burns your eyes,

"Mushy peas for ninja stealth farts",
Passers-by drop to their knees,
Meanwhile, Bobby, back at home, re-
Loads his tum with mushy peas.

[Mushy peas info here. Kecks = trousers.]
posted by Paul Slade at 5:33 AM on August 30, 2021 [3 favorites]

Ironically, yesterday I got an email from Rancho Gordo about their heirloom bean club; I'd signed up for the waiting list for the club about a year or so ago and it finally got down to the point where they could let me in, and so from now on about 4 times a year I'll be getting a box of 6 or so half-pound packages of different heirloom beans along with some other random fun thing (a packet of rice, a packet of popcorn, a t-shirt, something like that).

Let the record show that I would prefer this not to be a chance to conduct tests to find which of the beans I get are gassiest.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:45 AM on September 3, 2021