Aadia Mohd-Radzman is a botanist on a mission. The Cambridge University researcher wants the UK to recognize the wonders of a crop she believes could transform the country’s health. Hence her campaign – for the broad bean.
Vicia faba has a host of special properties, she argues. For example, it is rich in protein, fiber and iron. More importantly, it contains chemicals that have been linked to lasting improvements in mood and emotions in those who consume it, Mohd-Radzman told the Observer.
For these reasons, Britain needs to recognize the value of a legume that has been ignored for too long, claims the scientist, who has just launched a campaign to boost the British broad bean. This will include moves to improve its varieties, the publication of recipes for making the bean more palatable and organizing lectures and demonstrations to explain the benefits of an unfairly undervalued crop.
“The broad bean could do so much good for people in this country if they could be persuaded to eat it,” she says. “And that is my mission. To get the country to love the broad bean.”
Broad beans were first cultivated in the Middle East, but have been cultivated in Britain since the Iron Age. Around 740,000 tonnes are harvested each year from around 170,000 hectares of UK land.
“However, much of that harvest is used for animal feed, with much of the rest exported to Egypt, where it is used instead of chickpeas to make falafels,” said Mohd-Radzman, a researcher at the Sainsbury’s laboratory. added. Cambridge. “We should use it ourselves.”
Nor is Mohd-Radzman’s broad bean campaign the only attempt to get Britons to eat more Vicia faba. Scientists at Reading University recently suggested that Britain should switch to eating bread made with it because the end product would be more sustainable and will also make it easy to deliver key nutrients to people.
However, it is the ingredient levodopa, or L-dopa, that is of special interest to Mohd-Radzman, who also works at the Entrepreneurship Lab at King’s College Cambridge. It is used in the clinical treatment of people with Parkinson’s – and broad beans contain high levels of the compound.
“The crucial point is that L-dopa has been shown to be very effective in treating the condition known as anhedonia, which is essentially the inability to feel or experience pleasure. And that is why I believe the broad bean is important.
“We have a huge problem with a growing number of young people experiencing mental health problems in the UK today, and helping them to eat a proper, healthy diet will be crucial to tackling this. The broad bean we will be first line of attack.”
Works with the William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health, Mohd-Radzman focused on finding inexpensive and accessible ways to improve diets. “The broad bean is cheap and accessible and has known beneficial effects, so that’s why I promote it at talks and demonstrations.”
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However, the broad bean comes with a checkered history. It is also known as the fava bean, and under this name it was associated with death and decay by the ancient Greeks. The mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras ordered his followers not to eat them.
One reason for this unpopularity stems from the fact that eating fava beans can cause a disease called favism in a small number of vulnerable people in Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. These individuals may develop a blood disorder known as hemolytic anemia.
“Obviously it’s an issue that needs to be looked at,” Mohd-Radzman said. “One solution is to find broad bean varieties that contain low levels of the chemicals that cause favism in susceptible people. However, the real solution is to create versions that were genetically edited using Crispr technology and which contain no traces of the chemicals that cause favism – and that is what we started working on.”
Meanwhile, Mohd-Radzman continues to find more and more ways to get broad beans into our diet. “You can make a milk out of them. You can fry them with salt. You can even ferment them with chili to make a paste like kimchi. You can make salads with it or mix it with chorizo. You can do all kinds of things with broad beans. They are incredibly adaptable.”
