Aduki beans, soy beans, tofu and other bean products in the
Macrobiotic Diet

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Plus, there has lately been a fair amount of health literature warning about the harm and "dangers" of eating too much soy beans as well as soy products like tofu and soy milk.

These are, to some extent, valid concerns. But as we shall see later, not every one who eats beans or bean products will experience these problems. And even if you do, there are simple ways to sovle and avoid them – one of which is to eat more aduki instead of other types of beans.

Aduki beans are widely consumed in East Asian societies among the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans.

In their cuisine, aduki is often made into a sweet paste and used as a filling for snacks and desserts. For example, the Japanese use aduki beans paste as a filling for mochi, a desert made with sweet / glutinuous rice.

The Chinese eat a similar dessert with aduki paste, called glutinuous rice balls. They also use the same aduki beans filling for various pastries and Chinese-style “biscuits”.

For example, a popular Chinese breakfast food as well as snack is steamed buns or pau. These come with either meat fillings, or a sweet, black filling called tau sar, made from aduki beans.

Aduki is also cooked in a sweet, dessert-type soup or cream if it is made thicker and mashed up. A jelly dessert made from agar agar, a type of seaweed, is also sometimes made with aduki beans.

And, with refrigeration technology, aduki beans soup / cream is also sometimes frozen andenjoyed like an “ice-cream” – except that it does not contain milk or cream.

In addition, many older (and less imaginative) Chinese know only one way to cook unpolished brown rice – in a porridge with aduki beans and red dates.

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There are good reasons for the widespread use of beans.

Firstly, beans in general are an abundant and cheap source of high quality protein. For poor people in rural societies, beans, lentils and bean products like tofu and tempeh are often the primary source of protein in the diet.

Secondly, in Oriental health philosophy including macrobiotics, aduki beans are considered nourishing for the kidneys. And the kidneys, in turn, are considered the “engine” of the body that provides energy and vitality (including sexual vitality).

Incidentally, sugar is weakening for the kidneys. So it is not such a good idea to eat modern-style aduki beans paste, which usually contain excessive amounts of sugar. Better to cook your own aduki beans dishes and sweeten lightly or, better still, cook them with naturally sweet foods like squash or pumpkin.

Aduki with squash / pumpkin and kombu There is a macrobiotic dish made with aduki, kombu seaweed and squash or pumpkin. This dish is nourishing for the kidneys and highly recommended for those with kidney weakness (with symptoms such as low energy and low sexual drive). It's very simple to do. Just cook pre-soaked aduki beans in enough water to cover, together with a strip or kombu seaweed, cut into small squares. When the beans are about done, add squash or pumpkin. Japanese pumpkin, or kabocha, is particularly tasty with this. Also, add a pinch of sea salt (to draw out the sweetness of the aduki beans). And cook for another 20 to 30 minutes. Actual proportions of beans and squash or pumpkin is not vital. Just go easy on the kombu and don't use too much of it. One or two strips for four to six people would be more than enough.

Let us now look at how beans in general are viewed in the macrobiotic diet.

As always, we consider beans and other foods in terms of yin and yang, or expanding and contracting energy.

Beans that are small and hard are more contracting, and thus more strengthening for the body. These include:

• aduki beans or small red beans
• black soy beans
• chick peas or garbanzo beans

These are beans that require long hours of soaking and cooking before they are soft enough to eat.

Beans that are larger and softer are more expanding, and thus less strengthening. These include:

• broad beans
• kidney means
• black eye beans
• lentils or split peas
• mung beans or green beans

Sometimes, it may seem confusing. For example, mung beans are about the same size, or even slightly smaller, than aduki beans. But once you cook them, the difference is obvious. Mung beans soften after about 15 or 20 minutes of cooking, even without pre-soaking. In contrast, aduki beans, after they had been soaked for several hours, may still need to be cooked for an hour or longer before they soften.

In between, there are beans that are somewhat medium – in terms of size as well as in terms of hardness – like navy beans and soy beans.

Click on the following links to read, in greater detail, about specific food groups and what place they have in a macrobiotic diet:

Soy beans deserve special consideration because they contain certain chemicals that may be harmful to health if consumed in large amounts. You may wish to click here to learn more about soy beans.

If not, at least bear in mind that soy beans are best eaten in fermented form, such as miso, soy sauce, tempeh, natto and fermented bean curd – products such as “smelly tofu” which is popular in Taiwan and Hong Kong, as well as tau joo / hu joo, a salty condiment that the Chinese usually eat with rice porridge.

Non-fermented soy products like tofu, bean curd and soy milk, as well whole soy beans, should not be consumed in large amounts.

One exception is endamame, or fresh, green soy beans, as opposed to dried soy beans. Endamame comes in the pod, and is normally served steamed, with a sprinkling of salt, in Japanese restaurants. It is widely sold as a frozen vegetable in the Japanese foods section of supermarkets. Problems normally associated with soy beans do not seem to apply to endamame.

In the macrobiotic dietary recommendations, beans, bean products, lentils and other high protein foods (such as fish and seafood) are supposed to make up just a small proportion of the total food intake, about 10 to 15 percent.

Fermented bean products like miso, soy sauce, natto, etc are eaten in even smaller amounts – as seasoning in cooking, or as condiments and side dishes.

Many people are under the impression that the Chinese and Japanese eat a lot of tofu. But in traditional Chinese / Japanese diets, tofu is normally eaten as a small side dish, and maybe only a few times a week, not everyday at every meal.

Beans and bean products are not supposed to form a major part of the diet, not the way some misguided health conscious people take soy products all day long – in soy bread and breakfast cereals, soy milk, soy burgers, soy protein as meat substitutes, soy ice-cream, soy desserts, etc etc.

Once, while driving along California's scenic Highway One between Los Angeles and San Francisco, I stopped for lunch at a restaurant practically in the middle of nowhere, and was delighted to find that they served a so-called “macrobiotic meal” – of brown rice, miso soup, beans and vegetables. The only trouble was, the serving of beans was more than the serving of rice.

Beans consumed in such large quantities are one of the reasons why they might sometimes cause problems. Click below to read

• Part II of this article on how to avoid gas from eating beans – and which beans, including aduki beans, are the least likely to form gas.
  
  
• Part III of this article on how to avoid excessive uric acid (and other acids) in spite of eating beans regularly.