After our elimination diet experiment, the observations were pretty positive. Good energy, no nasal or digestive flareups for Roland and my digestive system is greatly improved. Now, to add things back!
We had beans for two days, which included the kidney beans in the chili, black bean soup, and a bit of chickpea flour in a pizza crust. We expected beans to be a pretty innocuous item, but actually, we didn’t like how we felt afterwards. We digested them fine (thankfully!) but both felt like they didn’t have a positive impact on our fullness levels.
Beans are good sources of both protein and carbohydrate. But when I included beans in my meals for a few days, I felt like I had to eat a lot more calories to get comfortably satisfied. For example, compared to eating 30 grams of carbohydrate from roasted squash, 30 grams of carbohydrates from black beans just wasn’t filling me up the same. Not even close! Same on the protein. Sources of protein like meat or eggs give me much better appetite fulfillment than the beans did.
I was looking forward to eating beans again. I really was. But once they were back on the menu, I didn’t really want them after those 2 days.
Roland was outright hungry when we added beans back in. A meal which (macronutrient-wise) normally would have kept us full for 5-6 hours was only doing the trick for 3. It was almost maddening to be hungry so much more than usual.
So we agreed. We tolerate beans fine, but probably won’t be choosing them often.
Next up…. let the grains begin!
