Beans are nourishing and a staple food in many parts of the world. The only concern many people have with eating beans is the flatulence they bring on. 'Don't eat beans before a meeting,' I was often told when I was a young man.

A team of scientists from Simon Bolivar University, Caracas, Venezuela, have developed a way of preparing beans that don't fill you up with gas later on. It involves fermenting the beans with a bacterium that reduces the level of compounds which cause flatulence.

If your food, especially fibre, has not been digested early on, it will end up in the large intestine undigested, containing many compounds which produce gas when digested. There are bacteria in the large intestine which break down this undigested food - if it contains these fibres, gas will be produced. Beans are full of these compounds.

The researchers found that if you naturally ferment beans with a bacteria called Lactobacillus casei, they contain lower amounts of these compounds. Raffinose, a wind-causing compound found in beans, was reduced by 88% with this method. Soluble fibre content went down by over 60%. The amount of insoluble fibre went up 97%. Insoluble fibre is the good fibre, it helps rid the intestines of toxins.

Therefore, this method could have two benefits:

1. People can eat beans and fart less.
2. The beans will be better, nutritionally.

Nutritionists stress that beans, even if they may cause flatulence, are good for you. Flatulence, in itself, is not bad for the health. Flatulence's undesirability is due to social factors.

Bear in mind that excess flatulence may be a symptom of some gastrointestinal problem, such as IBS.

You can read about this in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture.