Q: Couple of questions about beans (talk about a fascinating subject! :)...first, what do you think of canned beans? I use a whole can of black kidney beans in my chili. Where do buy fresh beans? I also read that some raw beans contain toxins that can give you food poisoning. Have you heard that?

A: My philosophy is always to go with the least processed and least preserved foods possible. I would buy fresh first, frozen second, and canned third. So when given a choice I'd go with plain dried beans instead of canned. (I might've confused by saing 'fresh beans' elsewhere -- I really meant the dried beans or lentils that you can buy in plastic packets). Some beans (especially kidney beans) do have natural toxins in them, but they would only affect you if you actually ate the raw beans. By soaking the beans (something you have to do for almost all beans) and then cooking them at high temperature you will destroy those toxins. Canned beans are already pre-soaked of course, so they don't have the toxins.

My bias against things like canned beans is more of a personal choice. As far as I know they only have salt and water for packaging (not the nitrates that are often used in canned meats and some other products), so they're unlikely to have serious health side-effects for you. Still, if they're part of your everyday diet, my healthy paranoia would give preference to plain dried beans instead of canned ones :) Oh and as far as fresh alternatives, there're always green beans which are an excellent food!