Fava beans
Broad beans are the seeds of herbaceous plants belonging to the Fabaceae (or Leguminose ) family, Genus Vicia, Species faba ; the binomial nomenclature of the broad bean is Vicia faba .
The bean pods resemble those of other spring and summer legumes. They are green and, despite being of considerable size (up to 25cm in length), appear to be an intermediate FORM between that of the snow peas and that of the green beans. The seeds are ellipsoidal, flattened, bright green, and show the portion of the germ in evidence. NB . The seeds of the broad beans are coated with an external (tegument) NON-digestible film which should be removed before consumption. This, which can be easily removed with a small incision in fresh seeds, is sometimes kept in dry ones. If present, it must therefore be removed by soaking the dried beans in cold water before consumption.
The beans are grown for various purposes. Certainly, the most important is the food of the human being, in which they are contextualized in various forms: fresh, dried, canned, frozen and as bean curd; the most exploited variety is called Major (large), by virtue of the size and number of seeds per pod, therefore of the excellent relationship between edible part and waste. Of secondary importance are the wild varieties and those intended for forage or fertilization of the fields.
As anticipated, the broad bean plant is herbaceous. It has an annual cycle and produces the fruit in spring, roughly in the month of May. Broad bean plants fear the heat and must be sown in late autumn, winter or early spring (depending on the local climate). They are not plants that exploit the subsoil much and are often used in the green manuring of the soil between two wheat crops; the only component that the beans require in abundance are the phosphoric compounds. They especially fear aphids and molds.
The beans also gave the name to the well-known pathology called favism . This genetic anomaly involves enzymes present in red blood cells ( glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase ) which, above all (but not necessarily) on exposure to pro-oxidant factors ( near and convicted of legumes, drugs etc.), are destroyed resulting in fearsome condition of hemolysis. This manifestation, if serious, can be lethal.
Bean flour
The bean curd is obtained by grinding the dry seeds of the Vicia faba plant, Major variety .
The use of bean curd is of various kinds; being a product more protein than cereal flours, it is often used by vegans to compensate for the quantitative and qualitative deficiencies of essential amino acids in the diet.
To get a clear idea of how to use bean curd (in association with wheat flour) in vegan nutrition, I suggest consulting Alice's videos entitled: Muscle of Wheat - Nutritional Properties, Differences with Seitan and Procedure, and Homemade Wheat Muscle (taking care to replace pea flour with broad bean flour).
The bean curd does NOT contain GLUTEN, therefore it is suitable for the celiac (gluten-free) diet.
Unsuitable as it may seem to the production of baked food, bean curd is often used in bread-making mixed with flour of various wheats (soft wheat, spelled, spelled, kamut, etc.). This combination is not only an attempt to increase the Biological Value (VB) of proteins, but it seems that (for some time) it has been used to give particular chemical-physical characteristics to bread. The percentage of bean curd in a dough to rise should not exceed 20%, but even in this case the product will be particularly weak; a simple 1% instead, can help to increase strength, stability, absorption, leavening itself, the superficial Maillard reaction and the lightening of the crumb (source: Fysis.it).
The energy intake of bean curd does not differ much from that of cereal flours, pseudo-cereals and legumes (about 340kcal / 100g). It has a fairly high protein content, very few lipids and a preponderant percentage of carbohydrates (tendentially complex), but still less than the rest of the flours. The amount of fiber is absolutely high.
As far as mineral salts are concerned, broad bean flourishes with a very high iron content, a modest supply of calcium and a high concentration of phosphorus.
Regarding vitamins, bean curd has the massive presence of B1, B2, PP and folic acid. Small amounts of vit. A and vit. C.
The bean curd is a food recommended in most diets, except those of people affected by favism or other special conditions that you can read in the dedicated article (Broad beans and related problems). In the diet, bean curd plays the role of both energy and plastic food and contributes to achieving the recommended rations of certain vitamins and mineral salts. The medium portion is similar to that for the other legume, cereal and pseudo-cereal flours, including first courses, bread, derivatives and the so-called "vegetable meat".
