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All of us, and especially those who do not eat meat, could benefit from eating kidney beans. Kidney beans have nutritional benefits. If you are heating them up from a can, they take only a couple of minutes to cook. Even if you are cooking dry kidney beans, it is only 45 minutes of your day. You could use the time to get other things done. The benefits outweigh the time spent cooking.

Kidney beans are a great source of protein. They contain about 15% of your daily protein needs. Unlike red meat, they have absolutely no grams of saturated fat, and are naturally low in calories. One cup equals about 280 calories, but most people only need about 1/4 of a cup to meet the daily average protein requirement. When you get enough protein each day, you are able to burn fat and gain muscle at a quicker rate. Kidney beans would be considered a great diet food. Kidney beans also have about 8-9% of your daily iron needs. This is a concern for people who do not eat meat because they are at a higher risk for anemia, a condition in which your red blood cell count is lower than the average. This is especially common in women.

Kidney beans contain about 14 grams of fiber. So many Americans do not get the recommended 25 grams of fiber in their diet a day. Eating fiber does seem to solve any kind of stomach troubles. Anything easy on your stomach is considered healthy. When you eat kidney beans, you get more than half of this amount. Fiber helps to keep us regular, and helps to make us lose weight, since we feel fuller after eating fiber for a very long time. We then will eat less calories each day. Be sure to drink more water when you eat a lot of fiber, because not drinking enough could lead to constipation.

Anyone who eats kidney beans know that they taste great. Healthy food does not have to be tasteless. You could mix kidney beans into a salad, or with other vegetables. They could also be added to rice or pasta dishes. They could be added to any meal in so many different ways.

They are also very inexpensive, costing no more than two dollars each bag. If you buy canned beans, they are on sale every week at the grocery store. What is better than choosing a food that is easy on your wallet and your health?

Learn more about this author, Erin Yarrobino.
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