Culinary practices and consumption characteristics of common beans at the rural home level

A survey was carried out on housewives of rural bean-producing areas for the purpose of collecting information on bean selection procedures, culinary practices and bean consumption in rural homes from four departments of northeastern Guatemala. The study sample consisted of 10 families selected at random from each of 19 municipalities. The questionnaire used had been pretested in two rural communities not included in the study sample. As already shown by other INCAP surveys of this nature, it was found that all families consumed common black beans, and on rare occasions beans of different color or species. With respect to cooking practices, it was found that beans are not usually soaked prior to cooking, and that few housewives add salt at the beginning of cooking. Two fractions are usually obtained, the cooked beans and the cooking broth. Another finding was that beans are consumed in four preparations: cooked whole, strained and fried, ground and fried, and cooked and fried. Bean broth is consumed by both adults and children, and a thick broth is preferred since it is considered to be more nutritious and better tasting. Children begin to consume bean broth as early as two months of age, and beans at 14 months. The average amount of broth ingested was 62 g, and whole cooked beans, 70 g. Mothers surveyed indicated that broth was administered to children because: it was nutritious (56% of the mothers); in order to teach children how to eat (15%); or because of its taste (9%). Regarding the hard-to-cook phenomenon, 32% of the housewives indicated that storage time was responsible for it, while 17% attributed this condition to bad seeds, and 18% to sun-drying or inadequate postharvest practices and to their preparation for consumption. Although the survey confirmed the importance that common beans have in rural diets, the main finding was that the first bean food product fed to children is the bean-cooking liquor or broth, which on the average contains 8.52% of total solids and 1.48% protein.