In recent years, the pursuit of happiness has spawned some crazy, bad, and frankly, pretty silly ideas.
Practicing yoga with goats. Soaking in a giant tub of ice water. Eating only purple food. Meditating upside down. Microdosing magic mushrooms.
In fact, it seems we’ll try anything to banish the blues and add a little more vibrancy and energy to our daily lives.
The latest happiness fad has emerged as the humble fava bean, Vicia faba, which has health benefits that even surpass those of spinach.
Firstly, it is rich in protein, dietary fiber, iron and vitamin C. It is also good for bone health, helps prevent high blood pressure and anemia, lowers cholesterol, boosts the immune system and aids in weight loss.
But scientists say this pales in comparison to the impact that fava beans (ideally with the skin on) can have on our mental health.
This is because it contains a very high amount of levodopa (L-dopa), a natural chemical used to treat Parkinson’s disease, which has also been linked to long-term improvements in mood, emotions and especially well-being.
It can also help treat a condition called anhedonia, the inability to feel or experience pleasure, according to Dr Nadia Mohammed Razman, a botanist and researcher at the University of Cambridge who also works at the Entrepreneurship Institute at King’s College Cambridge.
And the effects are so great, she argues, that fava beans could completely transform the health and well-being of the nation if we would just eat more of them.
“That’s my mission,” she said in a recent interview, “to get this country to love fava beans.”
And to this end, she is doing all she can to promote consumption of the great British broad bean, including improving varieties, suggesting irresistible recipes and hosting a series of talks about them.
It’s an impressive and brave plan, but Dr Mohammed Razman has a tough task ahead.
Broad beans are originally from the Middle East and have been cultivated in Britain since the Iron Age, but they are not loved around the world.
In fact, while some of us love crab, with or without the skin, and get very excited when they’re in season, most of us seem to hate crab.
My (admittedly very rough) polling suggests that at least two in three British adults, and most children, dislike pretty much everything about it: the taste, the texture, the shape, the rubbery skin.
Some people say it tastes fluffy, some say they hate the texture, and many people have very strong opinions about whether or not you should peel it.
Some go even further: In her book The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours (Bloomsbury), Niki Segnit classifies the animal as “half plant, half mammal” because of its “vaguely bloody, visceral and slightly cheesy” taste.
Meanwhile, there are endless lively discussion threads on Mumsnet where people dismiss the beans as “bitter”, “nasty”, “rubbery”, “really nasty” and, more shockingly, “looking and tasting like the pad of a dead finger”.
It may seem a bit extreme, but we’re not the first to dislike them: the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician Pythagoras commanded his followers not to eat them because they resembled fetuses; he said that doing so would be the same as eating human flesh.
So it’s perhaps unsurprising that while British farmers harvest around 740,000 tonnes of broad beans each year, we only eat a small fraction of it – most of it is used as livestock feed or exported to Egypt, where it is used to make falafel as a substitute for chickpeas.
That’s a shame.
Especially because it is an efficient, sustainable and nutritious crop that our farmers are extremely good at growing.
But more importantly, according to Dr Mohammed Razman, if we eat more fava beans we will have more energy, a spring in our step, a smile on our face and more enjoyment in life.
She’s not the only one pleading with us to reconsider our relationship with broad beans.
A team of scientists from the University of Reading recently suggested that Brits should switch to bread made from broad beans, which they claim is healthier, “more nutritious” and better for the environment than wheat bread.
Some people praise fava bean milk, and while it’s an interesting idea, it’s probably not something you’d want in your cappuccino.
Broad beans also have another unusual, though technically non-nutritional, benefit, but researchers at Iran’s Mashhad University recently discovered that they can also slow hair growth “without significant side effects.”
In the study, 25 women were given a cream containing 20 percent peas, which they applied to their underarms twice a day for three months, and it reduced the number and thickness of hairs “without any significant side effects.”
Once again, it’s L-dopa that does the magic here: it gets converted into dopamine in the body and constricts blood vessels, which encourages hair growth.
But fava beans should be handled with care. Pythagoras wasn’t the only one to avoid them: A small number of people in the Middle East and Mediterranean basin fear that eating them could cause a rare blood disorder called hemolytic anemia.
But Dr Mohammed Razman has a solution: farmers can grow bean varieties that contain lower levels of inducers, she says, and she points out that scientists are also working on genetically modifying beans to create ones that are completely inducer-free.
So all in all, it’s a wonder food like no other. If only I could convince more than a handful of people to actually try it. Maybe the tasty recipes above will change your mind…
