What if you could eat more food and still lose weight?

What if you didn’t have to to change your eating habits at all.  You simply added more delicious food to what you already eat and watched the pounds melt away.

What if you could pick and choose what you liked from several different choices?

Would you give it a try?

The magical food is called “pulses”—better known as beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils.

Yes, I know what you’re thinking—beans, beans the magical fruit.  But seriously, they’re magic for an entirely different reason!

Researchers examined 21 clinical trials involving close to 1,000 people and here’s what they found:

If you eat a ¾ cup serving of “pulses” every day without making any effort to reduce other foods, you can lose an average of ¾ pounds in an average of six weeks. [i]

How is that possible?

 
Pulses such as beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils are low-glycemic, high fiber foods. This means they break down slowly in your system and your blood sugar and insulin level remains constant.

It means you feel fuller longer and won’t be as tempted to fill up on empty calorie foods later on.  If you add pulses to a dish you cook, they can also displace bad fats and high carbohydrate fillers. This helps to significantly lower “bad” cholesterol.

Beans, peas, chickpeas and lentils are so important to your health that the United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization designated 2016 as the International Year of Pulses.

To celebrate and to get you started, here’s a recipe for a tasty dish my family loves—

White Bean Chicken Chili

• 2 whole (4 half) chicken breasts—use pre cooked, grilled or use left over—more or less chicken to taste—pull, shred or cut the chicken into bite size pieces. Please make sure it’s hormone and antibiotic free.
• 4 cans cannoli beans—I use organic—or you can make your own from scratch, using cannoli, white kidney or white navy beans.
• 1 large onion
• 2-3 garlic cloves
• 2 cartons chicken stock (4 cans)
• Chile pepper
• Ground cumin
• Crushed red pepper flakes
• Tarragon
• 1 small can green chilies
• 1 lime

1. Put 2 cans of cannoli beans, rinsed and drained, in the food processor.
2. Add and puree until paste:

• 1 TBSP chili powder
• 1 TBSP ground cumin
• Salt & pepper to taste

3. Rinse and drain 2 more cans of cannoli beans (or any white bean) and set aside.
4. In cook pot, sauté one large chopped onion and 2-3 minced garlic cloves. Add salt and pepper while these soften.
5. Stir the bean paste into the cooked onion and garlic in pot.
6. Add enough chicken stock to make the mixture soupy (start with one carton and have more on reserve because it thickens as it cooks).
7. Then add the whole beans that have been drained.
8. Add a little crushed red pepper flakes, a little tarragon, and 1 small can of green chilies (more if you like).
9. Taste as you layer each ingredient and add seasoning as needed.
10. Add the chicken breast meat.
11. Add the juice of 1 lime. This adds a great compliment to the heat.

 
Simmer on the stove until all seasonings are blended. It will thicken and become better and better each day.

[i] St. Michael’s Hospital. “Eating beans, peas, chickpeas or lentils may help lose weight and keep it off: United Nations and the Food and Agriculture Organization have designated 2016 as the International Year of Pulses.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 30 March 2016. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/03/160330135255.htm>.