Eat Your Beans!  author : Nancy Clark comments : 0  Remember
this jingle: “Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat,
the more you toot”? The embarrassment associated with tooting
explains why many athletes shy away from beans (pinto, kidney,
black) and also legumes (lentils, peanuts, soy, chick peas). But
far more than being a musical fruit, beans can be a nutrient-
rich bonus for a sports diet.  To my dismay, the popular but
faddish Paleo diet advises against eating beans because:  1)
They need to be cooked to be edible (the cavemen ate only raw
foods),  2) They contain compounds that might influence your
hormones (that is, if you were to eat them in super-human
amounts), and  3) They contain phytates that can diminish the
absorption of certain nutrients (insignificant in US diets where
beans are not the primary food).  In this era of over-abundant
processed foods, I contend that eating cooked beans enhances
intake of a variety of important vitamins and minerals for
athletes. But before I offer reaso