My (Only Slightly Exaggerated) Near Death Experience With Health Food


“Pumpkin!” That was the final word that I needed to win Mrs. Julkunen’s second-grade Fall Festival bingo game. The stakes were high: winning meant not only bragging rights on the playground but also a beautiful package of scented pencils that I lusted over and begged my mom endlessly for quarters so I could buy some out of the vending machines at my school. Cinnamon, bubblegum, even rootbeer! Ineeded those pencils. And Mrs. J just said “pumpkin!” I was the second-grade Bingo Star! Except… except that we were using pinto beans as bingo markers and I’d, um, eaten all my remaining pinto beans. And as everyone in second grade knows, if you can’t prove it with beans then your win, well, it isn’t worth beans.

That day I discovered my deep love for raw beans. Yeah, they’re so crunchy you could crack a tooth. Not to mention I was eating something that had passed through the fingers of multiple years of children who could not be counted upon to wash their hands after using the bathroom. And yet there was just something about the flavor. It was nutty with a slite bite at the end. And the hull that stuck in my teeth? Snack for later!

It was a love that has only grown stronger over the years. I still love me a good raw bean. Except that now in a nod to my apparent maturity, I soak the beans first to keep my teeth intact. Now don’t get me wrong, rarely do I just sit down with a big bowl of soaked beans – usually it happens over the course of a day while I’m soaking my beans to make one of the many variations of the 15-bean soup that is a staple of my diet. A lima here, a lentil there, a great northern for a real treat but over the course of a day I can eat a good cup or two of the little suckers.

Until last Friday. All my bean glee came crashing down when I did an innocent google search for “eating raw beans.” Apparently you are not supposed to eat raw beans. They can kill you. Especially the kidney beans of which I am so fond of. Cooked? No problemo. (Well, except for the gaseous emissions.) Raw? It begins with stomach cramps, diarrhea and nausea before progressing on to ER visits and, yes, death. Okay, so no deaths have been officially reported but there are plenty breathless warnings like this one:

PLEASE do not eat Raw kidney beans…they are TOXIC and you may end up in the hospital…..please look at googled sites….U.S. FDA and Atlanta center for deisease control……folks have DIED in UK for undercooked/uncooked kidney beans, both red and white!!!!!!!!! 

Do you see that? That’s nine exclamation points on that bad boy. And you know what nine exclamation points means. They are like, totally, super serious, not, like, making this up, okay??????

I panicked. And I did what everyone who thinks they are going to die (albeit of the world’s stupidest cause of death ever) does. I called my sister.

“I’m dying.”

“I’m sure you’re fine.”

“No seriously, I ate raw beans.”

“So? You used to eat bags of raw pasta when you were pregnant with your first. (True story.) Last I checked, being weird isn’t a fatal condition, just inconvenient on first dates and your husband married you anyways so I think you’re safe.”

Har, har. “For realz. Go google it. It says“:

 

Beans have the glycoprotein lectin named phytohaemagglutinin in various concentrations, depending on the cultivar or variety. The red kidney bean has the highest concentration of this lectin compound. Raw kidney beans have 20,000 to 70,000 toxin units, while fully cooked beans have only 200 to 400 toxin units. Undercooked beans may have up to 5 times the toxicity of raw beans.

Consumption of raw or undercooked beans can result in a severely debilitating illness.

Symptoms start within one to three hours of consumption of raw or undercooked kidney beans. The symptoms are extreme nausea followed by severe vomiting followed within one to a few hours with diarrhea and for some people, abdominal pain. Recovery is usually within three to four hours after the symptoms start.

All people are susceptible, regardless of age or gender. Severity of the symptoms is dose related. Eating as few as four or five raw soaked beans can cause symptoms. Confirmation of diagnosis of the disease is by observing the hemagglutination of red blood cells.

“Okay, so you vomit a lot. We used to do that for fun, remember?” (Ah, cracking jokes about our eating disordered history. Good times!)

“And then I DIE.” I will not be reassured. “It says I can get sick from as few as 5 beans!”

“How many did you eat?”

I panicked. I couldn’t remember. “I don’t know. At least 50.”

“50?!? Who eats 50 raw beans? You are so weird.”

“Yeah, I know. We covered that. What do I do?”

“Well how do you feel?”

I felt fine until she asked me that. Then of course my stomach seized up. “My stomach hurts!” I gasped.

“You just did that to yourself.”

“I did not! It’s the beans!”

“Have you eaten raw beans before?”

Shame. “Yes…”

“And have you ever died before?”

Ahem. “Okay, fine.”

“Well have you?”

“No.”

“Have they ever made you sick?”

“Nothing Bean-o or some papaya tablets couldn’t cure.”

“Case closed then. You’ll live. Now do your dishes.” (Can you tell we talk every day? She even knows when I do my dishes!)

Your Turn

Help me feel better! Any of you have socially unacceptable food cravings? Did you eat glue and like it? Play-Doh? Heaven help me – bingo pinto beans?!? Anyone else been attacked by their health food?

22 Comments

  1. In University I used to eat raw raman noodles. With the flavoring on it for good measure. I’m still tempted to sometimes, they were pretty darn good! Unfortunately I often had a stomach ache after and if I ate it too late, I could never sleep. But still, crunchy, salty yummyness!

  2. I’m sure there are many of us who should have died years ago from eating raw egg in the form of uncooked cookie dough, am I right?

    My brother and I used to sneak into the raw spaghetti and slowly crunch our way through a handful of sticks; yum, yum.

    I guess I should come clean and and fess up about my dry dog food habit when I was a wee tyke.

  3. Not yet! Maybe today, lol!

  4. Mmmmmmm – “raw” jello – by the box! My poor Mother had to finally put a lock on the cold storage door cuz there was never Jello for Sunday dinner! (Yes, green with shredded carrots… LOL)

  5. I would sneak into my family’s emergency preparedness rations and munch on the packaged mixes when I was young. Even today I look at the boxes of Hamburger Helper and Betty Crocker cake mix in the store and think that should be dinner. Luckily I shop with my hubby, and he keeps me on task and following the grocery list.

  6. I have a bad habit of buying expensive health foods and then not eating them before they expire. Thus I decided that most expiration dates are just suggestions. I haven’t gotten sick yet!

  7. Aren’t sisters the best? Every time I talk to mine, I think that women without a sister are really missing out. Anyway, I think you are safely immune to bean poisoning. Like your sister said, you haven’t died yet, right? But how freaky! I don’t like beans at all, but still, I had no idea.

  8. My only comment is that I love the interrobang, it is my favourite form of punctuation. I wish there was nearly as cool a name for the use of multiple (perhaps too many?!) question marks or exclamation marks.

  9. Do you have a good recipe for beans? I just soak and cook them and have them as a plain side dish. Very boring. Any suggestions? I like them because they are cheap and healthy, but my husband and kids are not amused. Does your family eat them? I think you should do a post on beans 🙂

  10. “Have you ever dies before?” Made me laugh so hard!!!!! 🙂
    When I was a kid I LOVED raw spaghetti.
    These days it’s handfuls of wasabi peas. Just cannot get enough!
    And…I suppose it’s a bit weird that I love the dregs let over at the bottom of my coffee cup.

    P.S., When I teach college kids, I always ring scented markers for them to use. Suddenly my room full of kegger-hopping, pre-med students turn into a bunch of kindergartners!

  11. Frozen peas.
    MMMmmmm.

    I am lazy and buy canned beans, so I’ve never experienced the joy of a raw bean.
    I’m OK with that 🙂

  12. I’m not the biggest fan of beans, raw or cooked (which is fine, since I’m supposed to be avoiding excess potassium, and man beans have a lot), but me and my siblings used to eat the dry ramen noodles in our young and hungry days. One of my brothers would eat the spice packets that you season them with. Straight. No water, no noodle. Sometimes he’d sneak them out of the ramen bags and then my mom would go to make lunch and we’d have nothing but noodley-water. Luckily, those of us who’d sneak the noodles wouldn’t like the seasonings, so there would sometimes be a leftover packet somewhere on the pantry shelf.

  13. I love raw spaghetti noodles and always munch on a few when making pasta for dinner.

    Another odd one? I love dipping nacho cheese Doritos in ketchup. Yum!

  14. UK television company, Ricochet, are looking to chat to people who have experienced food poisoning from eating raw or undercooked kidney beans. If you think you can help please get in touch with Imogen at Imogen.ogilvie@ricochet.co.uk in confidence.

  15. The right way to eat beans is to ferment them like the Japanese and Chinese do.

  16. Raw,old-fashioned oat meal, in a cereal bowl with probably a cup of sugar. However, only when my cousin and I were playing horses and that was our feed! No, we couldn’t use our hands. We were horses (Colby and Ebony as I recall) so we licked it from the bowl. Note: You have to lick from the side and lick deep to the bottom of the bowl. If not, you ended up with a first course of raw, unsweetened, oatmeal and a second course of a cup of sugar that always sifted to the bottom of the bowl. Happy Trails!!!

  17. @meg
    Beans a la charra. 45 minutes before taking them off the stove, add 1/2 cup chopped of each
    Tomato
    Onion
    Cilantro
    Raw bacon
    And some spicy jalapeno ( as much or little as you like) salt and pepper
    Best beans ever

  18. raw ground beef is my guilty pleasure

  19. raw ground beef and frozen french fries are my guilty pleasures

  20. This is no joke. About 2 weeks ago I became sick after eating an Indian restaurant appetizer made of deep-fried sliced onions battered in chick-pea flour, i.e., in a flour of ground-up dried legumes, then subjected to high heat — but only for a short time. We’ve eaten there many times, deep-fried stuff is like mother’s milk to me, and nobody else in our party had any problem. I’ve eaten a zillion fried onion rings, but this was the 1st time easting deep-fried onion with chickpea flour. I’m amazed that this info re the phytohemagglutinin in beans is not taught to everyone. It should be as common knowledge as cooking the pink out of pork.