Peanut butter is more easily digested than the roasted peanut, unless the latter is chewed to a pulp. It can be made at home by grinding the peanuts in a meat grinder, and then further mashing with a rolling pin or a wooden potato masher. A little lemon juice mixed with the peanut butter makes it not only more palatable, but more easily digested. A peanut butter sandwich is quite as nourishing as a meat sandwich.
Shelled Peas. Shelled peas were used in Europe as far back as in the Middle Ages, and there, to-day, the dried or “split” pea is used quite as extensively as the dried bean. In America, peas are used almost entirely in the green stage, fresh, or canned.
As seen by Table [VIII], the green, shelled pea contains seven per cent. of protein and sixteen per cent. of sugar and starch, while the dry or “split” pea contains over 24.5 per cent. of protein and sixty-two per cent. of sugar and starch, the difference being in the amount of water contained in the shelled peas. Canned peas contain even a larger percentage of water.
A variety of the pea is now being cultivated, in which, like the string bean, the pod is used as a food. They are sweet and delicious.
Dried peas are used in this country mostly in purées.
Beans. Baked navy beans may well be substituted on a menu for meat, containing, as they do, 22.5 per cent. of protein. It is needless to state that beans and lean meat or eggs should not be served at the same meal. Beans have the advantage of being cheaper than meat, yet, as stated above, the protein in the legumes is less easily digested than the protein of meat or eggs. They must be thoroughly cooked and thoroughly masticated.
There is but a small percentage of fat in dried beans; for this reason they are usually baked with a piece of pork. They make a very complete, perhaps the most complete food, containing nutrient elements in about the proper proportions.
A bean biscuit is used for the sustenance of soldiers on a march; it gives a complete food in condensed form.
In baking dried beans or peas, soft or distilled water should be used, as the lime of hard water makes the shell almost indigestible. Parboiling the beans for fifteen minutes in two quarts of water with a quarter of a teaspoon of baking soda softens the shell, making them easier to digest.
String Beans. The string bean contains very little nutrition, as shown by Table [VIII]. The pod and the bean, at this unripe stage, contain nearly ninety per cent. water. Their chief value as a food consists in their appetizing quality to those who are fond of them, thus stimulating the flow of gastric juice.