In Praise of Pintos
If anything can be counted as a gift from the gods, the pinto (and generally, all human-edible legumes) is one of them.
This staple of the Southwest is among the most nutritious of all foods. For an adult, a cup of cooked pintos supplies about 40% of the adult Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of protein, 50% of the RDA of folate and soluble fiber, and 15% of the RDA of iron and carbohydrates. Pintos are fat-free and have negligible sodium.
While pintos as such are righteously healthful, some of the ways they are prepared are not. Many recipes for refried beans (frijoles refritos), for example, call for as much as 25% saturated fat (e.g., bacon grease or lard) and enough salt per serving to supply half of the RDA for sodium. A steady diet of such concoctions is a fast track to cardiovascular disease. You can help to avoid this pitfall by cooking pintos without fat or salt and adding them to your favorite low-fat, moderate-salt recipes. If you buy commercially canned pintos, select preparations that provide no more than 10% of the RDA for fat and sodium (see the nutritional analysis label on the can).
Compared with common animal sources of protein, pintos are dirt cheap. At today’s prices, for example, 4 ounces of lean beef chuck costs about 60 cents and supplies about 30 grams of protein (about half of the protein RDA for an adult). The protein-equivalent amount of chicken (as a “whole fryer”) is about 30 cents. The protein-equivalent amount of pintos (about two cups cooked) costs about 15 cents, or half the cost of chicken, and less than a quarter the cost of lean beef.
The nitrogen fertilizer requirements of food crops are price- and environmental-impact drivers, and here, too, pintos shine. To understand why, it helps to understand a little about how nitrogen fertilizers are made and what happens to them after they are applied to crops.
Most nitrogen fertilizers used to grow commercial food crops in the US are derived from anhydrous ammonia, which is made by a high-temperature, high-pressure reaction called the Haber process. The Haber process requires about 40,000 cubic feet of natural gas per ton of nitrogen fertilizer. Natural gas is in high demand as a heating fuel, so food crop prices are very sensitive to the amount of nitrogen fertilizer required to grow them.
Protein production that depends heavily on fertilizers derived from Haber-process anhydrous ammonia also has high energy requirements and a large carbon footprint. Beef raised in feedlots (on corn-rich feed), for example, currently requires about ten times as much fossil-fuel energy, and produces about ten times as much carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), per pound of protein as pintos.
Once applied to crops, fertilizers derived from anhydrous ammonia are hard to control. Irrigation and rain water transport unused fertilizer from the fields, polluting ponds, lakes, and streams -- and in some cases, drinking water.
All other things being equal, therefore, the less a food source depends on fertilizer derived from Haber-process anhydrous ammonia, the better.
Pintos have low nitrogen fertilizer requirements compared to most human-edible crops because, with the help of a (“nitrogen-fixing”) bacterium that naturally grows on their roots, they can obtain from the air a large part of the nitrogen they need. They require no more than 50 lbs. of nitrogen fertilizer per acre per year beyond what is produced by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots, even in the most nitrogen-deficient soils. In contrast, corn, a common non-legume source of vegetable protein in human diets, requires near four times as much nitrogen fertilizer per acre per year as pintos do.
Pintos produce at least as much human-usable protein per acre as any other commercial crop but soybeans. One acre of pintos could in principle meet all the protein requirements of one person for about 16 months.
Pintos and corn require about the same amount of water (about 20 inches per crop) for maximum production.
Not least, no one has complained about living downwind from a field of pintos. But even with a bad cold, you can locate a feedlot or a commercial chicken-raising facility on a moonless night from miles away.
For more information, see http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/report/HTML/D1_Tables.htm.
This staple of the Southwest is among the most nutritious of all foods. For an adult, a cup of cooked pintos supplies about 40% of the adult Recommended Daily Allowance (RDA) of protein, 50% of the RDA of folate and soluble fiber, and 15% of the RDA of iron and carbohydrates. Pintos are fat-free and have negligible sodium.
While pintos as such are righteously healthful, some of the ways they are prepared are not. Many recipes for refried beans (frijoles refritos), for example, call for as much as 25% saturated fat (e.g., bacon grease or lard) and enough salt per serving to supply half of the RDA for sodium. A steady diet of such concoctions is a fast track to cardiovascular disease. You can help to avoid this pitfall by cooking pintos without fat or salt and adding them to your favorite low-fat, moderate-salt recipes. If you buy commercially canned pintos, select preparations that provide no more than 10% of the RDA for fat and sodium (see the nutritional analysis label on the can).
Compared with common animal sources of protein, pintos are dirt cheap. At today’s prices, for example, 4 ounces of lean beef chuck costs about 60 cents and supplies about 30 grams of protein (about half of the protein RDA for an adult). The protein-equivalent amount of chicken (as a “whole fryer”) is about 30 cents. The protein-equivalent amount of pintos (about two cups cooked) costs about 15 cents, or half the cost of chicken, and less than a quarter the cost of lean beef.
The nitrogen fertilizer requirements of food crops are price- and environmental-impact drivers, and here, too, pintos shine. To understand why, it helps to understand a little about how nitrogen fertilizers are made and what happens to them after they are applied to crops.
Most nitrogen fertilizers used to grow commercial food crops in the US are derived from anhydrous ammonia, which is made by a high-temperature, high-pressure reaction called the Haber process. The Haber process requires about 40,000 cubic feet of natural gas per ton of nitrogen fertilizer. Natural gas is in high demand as a heating fuel, so food crop prices are very sensitive to the amount of nitrogen fertilizer required to grow them.
Protein production that depends heavily on fertilizers derived from Haber-process anhydrous ammonia also has high energy requirements and a large carbon footprint. Beef raised in feedlots (on corn-rich feed), for example, currently requires about ten times as much fossil-fuel energy, and produces about ten times as much carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas), per pound of protein as pintos.
Once applied to crops, fertilizers derived from anhydrous ammonia are hard to control. Irrigation and rain water transport unused fertilizer from the fields, polluting ponds, lakes, and streams -- and in some cases, drinking water.
All other things being equal, therefore, the less a food source depends on fertilizer derived from Haber-process anhydrous ammonia, the better.
Pintos have low nitrogen fertilizer requirements compared to most human-edible crops because, with the help of a (“nitrogen-fixing”) bacterium that naturally grows on their roots, they can obtain from the air a large part of the nitrogen they need. They require no more than 50 lbs. of nitrogen fertilizer per acre per year beyond what is produced by the nitrogen-fixing bacteria on their roots, even in the most nitrogen-deficient soils. In contrast, corn, a common non-legume source of vegetable protein in human diets, requires near four times as much nitrogen fertilizer per acre per year as pintos do.
Pintos produce at least as much human-usable protein per acre as any other commercial crop but soybeans. One acre of pintos could in principle meet all the protein requirements of one person for about 16 months.
Pintos and corn require about the same amount of water (about 20 inches per crop) for maximum production.
Not least, no one has complained about living downwind from a field of pintos. But even with a bad cold, you can locate a feedlot or a commercial chicken-raising facility on a moonless night from miles away.
For more information, see http://www.health.gov/dietaryguidelines/dga2005/report/HTML/D1_Tables.htm.
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