If you'd like to eliminate gas formation caused by legumes, you need only change the water (preferably twice) during the cooking process. Undigestible sugars (AKA soluble fiber) are the primary culprit for this property of most legumes. Conveniently, they dissolve when heated in water. However, legumes begin very hard and it takes a lot of boiling to release all of those gas-forming sugars. If you have a legume that takes two hours to soften by boiling, try changing the water once after an hour, and again after they're fully boiled. (And rinse thoroughly.) Then you can use them in any dish and generally suffer little to no gas after consuming. Enjoy!
Unfortunately, oligosaccharides (including raffinose, stachyose, ciceritol, and verbascose commonly found in legumes and often result in flatulence in humans) are heat stable, no matter how long you cook them.
2 processes that help you breakdown these include germination and fermentation. Other herbs like hing, epazote etc only allieviate the symptoms a little.
In Indian cooking (which uses a lot of legumes) our solution is to soak them overnight and discard the water - cuts down the raffinose and overall cooking time. We also almost universally cook them in pressure cookers - even the toughest beans cook rapidly in a pressure cooker if soaked - maybe 15 minutes?
Or simply add a strip of konbu. That works in an electric pressure-cooker, which makes beans even faster to prepare. It also works for cattle who are prone to bloat.
>Some red seaweeds are anti-methanogenic, particularly the genus Asparagopsis, due to their capacity to synthesize and encapsulate halogenated CH4 analogues, such as bromoform and dibromochloromethane
It cites studies that suggest the mechanism that's so effective in cattle, and presumably the same in humans, is that the seaweed contains a good combination of compounds which inhibit methane production in anaerobic bacteria in the gut.
Also, don't eat legumes that have just been soaked or that are still cooking, you'll get a huge stomachache. I learned this the hard way while tasting kidney beans while they were cooking.
"As few as five raw beans or a single undercooked kidney bean can cause severe nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains."
That's nuts, though I don't understand why undercooked beans would be worse than raw beans, and not the other way round. Maybe the two claims are from different sources.
All legumes are toxic by default, and some are very toxic.
Leguminosae is a big family and they are masters on alkaloid design. This is the main reason why we made our bread from cereals and not from legume flour. Cereals are more safe to manipulate because their defense is physical, not chemical.
