...Bean Hater

I am prejudice...against beans. I have been since I was a child. No, I'm not talking about jelly beans, or green beans, or coffee beans, or even black beans. I'm talking about the really yucky beans that no kid would ever in a million years want to eat - the dreaded Kidney bean, the terrible Pinto bean, and the absolutely horrifying Lima bean.

Growing up, my mom would always make her famous Five Bean Hotdish for special occassions, like church or school potlucks. As if one bean wasn't bad enough, her casserole had five different kinds of beans in it! I remember it being very clumpy - the beans congealed together in a big brown mass! Yuck. I hated that hotdish. So ever since then, I have held a prejudice against most beans. Even though I can't remember what any of those beans taste like, I think I still don't like them.  

(Side note: A viewing of Texas Chainsaw Massacre as a young child at a slumber party scarred me from ever eating chili again. Kidney beans are in chili. See? Real, solid proof that they are indeed bad.)

Now that you know my history with beans, you can imagine my surprise when at the grocery store last night I tossed a can of Azuki beans into the cart. While they weren't in  my mom's hotdish, they are a bean and as a rule, I try to avoid them.

My holistic hero, Dr. Gillian McKeith, has been preaching about the Azuki beans since forever, and it obviously has stuck with me. She says, "Hail to the Adzuki Bean, my Bean of Weight Losss." (From Slim for Life.) I expected the beans to taste terrible. Afterall, Gillian always makes the people on her tv show (You Are What You Eat) eat them and they usually throw tantrums of disgust. I was expecting the worst...

And I found out they aren't that bad. In fact, they're kind of good. I actually kind of like them. I mixed the beans with some brown rice, broccoli, and a little chicken. It was really tasty. What a surprise! This tiny success has encouraged me to branch out and try some other unfamiliar beans. And maybe...eventually...I can gather enough courage to revisit the beans of my past.