The Potential of the Faba Bean
I love growing faba beans, much more than common beans. They are vital, earlier, produce much larger seeds, and offer many other benefits. They can be used as young shoots, green pods, fresh shelled beans, and mature dry seeds (excellent for storage—just dry them properly after harvest and freeze them for two days to avoid any surprises with the faba bean weevil).
Unfortunately, I recently discovered that I suffer from liver issues and developed gout. I had to eliminate everything containing purines from my diet, such as meat, fish, and unfortunately, legumes. I was looking for a replacement or a way to bypass the purine problem in faba beans. And I found it.
Note: The “eat-all-greens” method (Carol Deppe) for faba shoots can be utilized even by people without health issues, especially in regions or seasons where the climate is too hot for faba beans to set pods.
The Evolutionary Faba Protocol: A Local Non-GMO Soy Alternative and Biochemical Purine Bypass (Gout/Liver Safety)
Faba beans (Vicia faba) possess an incredible and overlooked potential. In our colder, short-season region (Otín, 560 m a.s.l.), they serve as a perfect, frost-resilient, and nitrogen-fixing alternative to imported, heat-loving, and often GMO-derived soy.
However, to turn the faba bean into a completely safe meal for people with metabolic sensitivities (gout, uric acid issues, compromised liver), we must technologically remove the problematic parts: purines, lectins, and tannins.
I have developed two parallel processing protocols:
1. THE GREEN LINE: Fermented Shoots (Eat-All-Greens Method)
- When to use: Ideal during hot summer spells when early-spring fabas are maturing and later ones drop their blossoms due to heat stress, or as a deliberate high-density summer sowing for leafy green vegetables.
- Protocol: Harvest young vegetative shoots (15–25 cm tall), chop them up, and subject them to lactic fermentation in a solution of Umeboshi vinegar (for immediate alkalization) and live whey from homemade kefir or Viili.
- Outcome: In this acidic environment, the lactic acid bacteria initiate breakdown (triggering deep enzymatic proteolysis). They break down complex plant proteins and purines into liver-safe compounds that don’t burden the body. You get a metabolically clean, highly nutritious green biomass.
2. THE DRY LINE: Full-Spectrum Faba Milk (Faba Milk)
- Protocol: Take mature dry seeds (or freshly germinated seeds to maximize enzymatic activity, depending on how much you are in a hurry) and soak them for 24 hours in water with a dash of Umeboshi vinegar. This low-pH environment unlocks the seed’s endogenous phytases.
- Dehulling: After sufficient soaking or germination, manually peel the beans. The outer hulls contain concentrated tannins and lectins that strain the liver and gallbladder. Blend the dehulled cotyledons with fresh water (1:3 ratio) and boil vigorously for at least 20 minutes to completely deactivate thermolabile lectins.
- Fermentation: Let the mixture cool down to 35°C (95°F), inoculate it with live kefir or Viili whey, and ferment for 24 hours.
- Outcome: An absolutely clean, rich, and local plant-based milk with practically zero risk of a gout flare-up (I will be testing this myself as a guinea pig!). It is a premium alternative to soy milk, made entirely from my own homegrown mountain bio-beans left over after seed selection.
What do you think? Do you have any personal experience with using fermentation to reduce purines or antinutrients in legumes? Or with growing faba beans during the summer for green harvesting? I would love to hear your thoughts and insights.