13 Amazing Health Benefits of Black-Eyed Peas
Health benefits if Black-eyed Peas include weight-loss wonders, contains important vitamins and minerals for health, heart health, power of protein, helps combat anemia, helps decrease risk of pancreatic cancer, helps keep diabetics on an even keel, regulates blood pressure, keeps your bones strong, keeping your nervous system healthy, reduces indigestion, and strengthens eye tissue.
As we get older, we start to think about foods we can eat that will be good for our health. There is a say that you are what you eat, and as I age, I am finding out how true that is. If you are from the south, black-eyes peas are a staple.
I was raised in the north, so I have never tried black-eyed peas. Although, after what I have seen on the internet, I think I am going to start. Read on and find out how this simple food can help your health in so many ways.
13 Amazing Health Benefits of Black-Eyed Peas
1. Weight Loss Wonders
When you hit a certain age, weight loss is not like it used to be when you were in your teens and twenties. There is a new meaning that will go straight to my hips. In the quest for weight loss, we all try to find foods that are low in fat and calories but keep us feeling full.
We also want energy. It is not always easy to find in veggies and fruit and endless salads. Well, a great alternative that will fill you up as well as give you a great source of energy is black-eyes peas! Who would have thought?
They have a great source of fiber, which is excellent for those of us on a weight loss quest. The insoluble fiber found in the beans will help keep your gut healthy, which is a major plus with weight loss.
2. Important Vitamins and Minerals for Health
Besides tasting good and the wives’ tales about black-eyed peas, they are a great source of vitamins and minerals for your body. For women, they are rich in folate, which helps lower the chance of birth defects when you are pregnant.
Another invaluable antioxidant found in black-eyed peas is manganese, which helps your cells regenerate and give your body energy. And although carrots are normally advertised as a great beta carotene source, so are black-eyes peas.
Vitamin A is also a great antioxidant that helps create material to ensure harmful bacteria do not enter the body and keeping your skin’s integrity intact. The great thing about black-eyed peas as well is no matter what form you choose to serve them; you will not lose nutritional value. Some foods need to be fresh or steamed to retain the value for health, but not these black beans.
3. Heart Health
Black-eyed peas are important for heart health as well. When following a diet for your heart, be sure you include these little wonder beans. They contain physoterols.
These little gems help reduce your cholesterol levels, which is a crucial component to maintaining good heart health. On a side note, physoterols also help combat certain cancers as well.
4. Power of Protein
Protein is a vital source of nutrients for our body. It helps with muscle formation and maintenance. This is also important for diabetics. When the body is in crisis, people with diabetes tend to have ketones in their urine. It signifies the body is burning muscle as opposed to fat.
To maintain a healthy balance, keeping protein in the diet helps keep muscles strong. Protein is also crucial in healthy skin, hair, and nails. For women, this is especially important because the strain of giving birth can tax nutrients and make hair brittle and unhealthy, as well as nails.
Protein also provides cell energy, which is needed for everyday life. Those who work out and want to cut back on meat need additional sources of protein as well to keep their energy and muscle building up.
5. Helps Combat Anemia
While anemia is a common condition in those who do not eat meat or women who are pregnant, black-eyed peas are a great way to help fight this condition.
Anemia causes extreme fatigue and weakness because your blood does not have enough iron, which helps carry oxygen throughout your body and gives you energy.
Just ½ cup of these beans will help boost your iron by 2.2 mg. That is a pretty powerful boost in food if your body has trouble with taking ferrous sulfate usually prescribed.
6. Helps Decrease Risk of Pancreatic Cancer
Unless you’ve lived under a rock for the past thirty years, you know who Alex Trebek is. While he is famous for Jeopardy, he is sadly renowned for battling pancreatic cancer. Most people who have Stage 4 pancreatic cancer cannot function as well as he.
While it is sad, he is suffering; he is bringing a very well-known face to pancreatic cancer and various research and awareness of this horrible cancer. Having a diet rich in folate can help combat this all too often, fatal cancer.
Researchers have found that those who have a folate-rich diet actually have a 69 percent reduced chance of pancreatic cancer. That’s a powerful punch in a little bean.
7. Helps Keep Diabetics on An Even Keel
For those of you who have type 1 diabetes, you know the key to feeling right and staying healthy is controlling those sugars. Adding black-eyed peas to your diet will help with this.
Because of helping with gut health, these beans can help with the health of your pancreas as well. Because they are a great source of fiber, this helps keep your body regular, which helps keep sugar at normal levels.
8. Regulates Blood Pressure
While you are on your way to getting healthy or are recovering from a heart attack, maintaining your blood pressure, black-eyed peas have a high amount of potassium in them, which helps with keeping your blood pressure at bay.
The iron in these beans will also help keep your energy up, which also helps keep you moving, which, in turn, will help your blood pressure stay in a good range.
9. Keeps Your Bones Strong
As you get older, your bones tend to get soft or brittle, especially women. Having children drains your body of calcium, which in turn can cause osteoporosis.
Black-eyes peas contain calcium and phosphorus and magnesium which strengthen your bones and help keep you active as you age.
Having strong bones will also help with less chance of injury if you take a fall. Bones being brittle can puncture lungs or horrible hip breaks.
10. Keeping Your Nervous System Healthy
Black-eyed peas are great for every system of your body, but the one system a lot of us don’t think about is the nervous system. We take that whole breathing in breathing out function for granted. It is part of our autonomic nervous system.
The one that keeps our heart beating and our lungs going. The nervous system is the most important, but often overlooked when it comes to being healthy and eating right to keep it working well. These tasty little beans have a high amount of amino acids, which is vital for the nervous system to work right.
11. Helping Babies Before They Are Born
Because of the high amount of folate in black-eyed peas, moms are giving their babies a boost before they are even born. Folate helps in the neural tube and red cell formation in unborn babies.
It is essential for the proper development and optimal health for babies before they are born. Having proper red cell formation ensures unborn babies are getting enough oxygen as well.
12. Reduces Indigestion
One thing moms learn with pregnancy is how often indigestion can occur. Even as we all age, we learn to do whatever we can to avoid dreaded indigestion. Believe it or not, black-eyed peas can help!!
It is mostly in part due to the high amounts of soluble fiber in them. Having a good source of fiber helps with many issues in the gut, even debilitating disease. Keeping your gut health in check definitely reduces the occurrence of indigestion.
13. Strengthens Eye Tissue
When we age, usually the first thing we notice “going” is our eyesight. It can be due to a complex process or just a lack of vitamins in our diet. It is also hereditary but trying to help slow the process of genetics and age, we can put vitamins in our diet that help.
Eye tissue is essential in helping keep our vision good. Eating just one cup of these black beans cooked provides more Vitamin A than many green veggies that are touted for their huge benefits.
I’m not saying cut out the greens; I am saying that helping preserve vision is boosted by eating some black-eyed peas.
Conclusion
To sum all this up, black-eyed peas are more than a southern tradition on New Year’s Day for luck and prosperity through the year. Although I get it, with the added health benefits of black-eyed peas, we would all do well.
There are not too many foods we eat that can help with the “normal” health worries as well as those we do not often think about. I mean, I would never have imagined just one cup of a bean would help so much with my vision. Not to say the pancreas.
Now, who would think to eat better for their pancreas if they are not diabetic? Well, I am going to start. We only get this ride once folks, we should all do what we can to make it a long and enjoyable one.
References:
https://blackdoctor.org/506646/5-health-benefits-of-black-eyed-peas/
https://blog.aicr.org/2018/09/12/folate-and-vitamin-b6-intake-may-reduce-pancreatic-cancer-risk/
