Lima Beans facts
While investigating facts about Lima Beans Recipe and Lima Beans Nutrition, I found out little known, but curios details like:
American soldiers in the Vietnam War so detested the "Ham & Lima Beans" ration, that it became deemed bad luck to say the ration's proper name, opting instead to call it "Ham and Motherfuckers".
how lima beans grow?
Lima bean is very popular in the USA where an average citizen consumes 0.3 pounds of lima bean per year.
What's lima beans?
In my opinion, it is useful to put together a list of the most interesting details from trusted sources that I've come across answering what's lima beans called. Here are 25 of the best facts about Lima Beans Instant Pot and Lima Beans And Ham I managed to collect.
what lima beans are good for?
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Fruit of lima bean are green pods filled with oval or kidney-shaped, flattened beans.
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Lima bean can grow in the form of bush (up to 2 feet in height) or vine (up to 12 feet in height). Varieties that grow in the form of bush reach maturity earlier, but they are more sensitive to diseases and pests.
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Lima bean is also known as "butterbeans" due to taste of cooked beans which resembles butter.
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Scientific name of lima bean is "Phaseoulus lunatus". Name refers to the shape of bean, which looks like half-moon (lunatus = crescent-shaped, in Latin).
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Lima Bean plants emit fragrances when attacked that attract natural predators of their attacker, as well as alerting all nearby plants to do the same. Caterpillars will cause the plant to attract parasitic wasps that lay eggs inside of the capterpillar.
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When lima bean became popular in North America and Europe, it was often transported from South America in boxes marked with "Lima, Peru", to inform recipients on the origin of food. That's how it earned its name.
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Lima Beans recruit carnivores to reduce herbivory. In other words, Lima Beans attract the (carnivorous) predator of their predators (herbivores). The carnivore then comes to the Lima Bean and finds the herbivore, and eats them.. resulting in the Lima Bean being spared.
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Lima bean has green, compound leaves that consist of three large, heart-shaped leaflets.
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Lima bean is available in fresh, dried and canned form. It can be used for the preparation of soups, casseroles, paellas and stews.
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Lima bean produces white or yellowish flowers with both types of reproductive organs (perfect flowers). Flowers contain large quantities of nectar which attracts honey bees, main pollinators of this plant. When natural pollinators are not available, flowers perform self-pollination.
Why lima beans called butter beans?
You can easily fact check why lima beans are called by examining the linked well-known sources.
Thanks to high content of dietary fibers, lima bean can prevent constipation, regulate blood sugar level and reduce blood cholesterol level.
Lima bean is rich source of dietary fibers, proteins, vitamins of the B group and minerals such as molybdenum, magnesium, manganese and iron.
Babies are very small (like a lima bean) and completely dependent on their mother for the first couple of months. Unlike other mammals, females do not have nipples. She feeds her babies with milk patches located in the middle of the belly.
Beverly Hills was a lima bean farm named Hammel and Denker Ranch before a company bought the farm to drill for oil. When enough oil wasn't found, they renamed it to Beverly Hills and starting selling off lots.
Lima beans need to be cooked before consumption, to ensure degradation of cyanide glycosides (group of harmful compounds).
How do you know when lima beans are done?
Beans can be white, creamy or green colored. They are usually covered with reddish-brown markings. All varieties of lima bean can be divided in three major groups, based on the size of beans: dwarf, small ('sieva type") and large ("lima type").
How to cook lima beans?
Lima bean reaches maturity 65 to 95 days after sowing. One hectare of lima beans produces 6.400 to 11.000 pounds of beans per year.
Lima bean is perennial plant (lifespan: more than 2 years), but it is often cultivated as annual plant (lifespan: one year).
A newborn Kangaroo is about the size of a Lima bean. That's small enough to fit in a teaspoon.
Today (April 20th) is National Lima Bean Respect Day
Before Beverly Hills was home to the rich and famous, the area was better known for its lima beans.