[katcol79]

Hi all,

I’m new here, though I’ve had budgies a good number of years. I only recently have gotten into better feeding habits. I’m looking for some guidance on cooking beans.

I’ve fed my keet L’Avian Plus’ Bean Cuisine on pretty much a daily basis for the past six months or so. It’s a dry mix cooked in water on the stovetop that can be frozen in ice cube trays. I chop up some fresh veggies to mix in with it, and he loves it. I decided to try to make my own mix similar to it (ingredients include navy, pinto and small red beans; split peas and lentils; also barley, brown rice and pasta).

When I started reading about how to cook beans, I learned about the hemaglutin toxin in dried beans and how it has to be destroyed by cooking.

Here are my problems/questions:

1. I can’t seem to find a consensus on what an appropriate cooking time is. Several things I’ve read (from other threads on here, holisticbird and human food sites) have been talking about 40 minutes to an hour or two and more. On the other hand, I was looking at the kitchen sink recipe here on BirdBoard, and Lissa points out that after bringing the beans to a boil, she only cooks them for about 20 minutes; otherwise the beans get too mushy. This has been my experience as well; I’d rather serve them somewhat intact. I’d probably want to cook the minimum amount of time for them to be safe. Thoughts?

2. The Bean Cuisine contains dried navy, pinto and small red beans, but the cooking directions call for adding the mix to boiling water, returning to boil, then immediately removing from heat and letting cool. In other words, very little cooking time. The beans could be cut with a knife, but were still pretty hard, not mushy at all. I thought it was a little weird (and I’d usually cook a little longer so stuff got softer), but I didn’t know then about the whole toxin thing. Everything seems to be OK; Waldo ate it for months and never had a problem. Does anyone have any idea why the cooking time isn’t longer if the toxin issue presents a real problem?

I really appreciate whatever insight anyone might be able to offer -- I’m so confused! Thanks!