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It's widely recommended in vegan circles to discard bean soaking water. Here's an example: > So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now

It's widely recommended in vegan circles to discard bean soaking water. Here's an example: > So after the beans have soaked for a while, the soaking water now contains these elements that you are trying to eliminate by soaking the beans in the first place. And this is why the bean water is discarded. So it is best to drain the water and rinse the beans thoroughly before cooking. -- https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.html https://www.vegancoach.com/why-discard-bean-soaking-water.ht... Anyone know whether that's right or wrong? Does it depend on the bean? Maybe the soaking water is a problem but not the cooking water?

warent 6y ago
I'm not sure if this is what it's referring to, but I've never used raw beans for aquafaba. It's precooked beans that are soaking in water that make the aquafaba. By that point hopefully you've already cooked the nasties out of the bean
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
jedimastert 6y ago
Mostly the "aquafaba" that I see referred to (admittedly in passing most of the time) is the liquid from canned chickpeas.
kevinmchugh 6y ago
AFAIK the main reason for soaking beans is to save cooking time and allow for even cooking. It may absorb some of the indigestible sugars, but I'm not positive. They won't hurt you, regardless, though they might cause embarrassment. Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars. If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.
tgb 6y ago
This is an interesting point. I've taken to cooking beans from dry in a pressure cooker and usually in a "meal" that gets cooked with it at the same time. So I can't discard the water. The toxins in uncooked beans are real, but does the heat of cooking destroy them? It looks like the answer is yes [1], which says that "No significant lectin changes were observed after soaking the beans" but that the lectin levels are undetectable in cooked beans. (I.e. cooking, not soaking is the important part.) That does leave your question in somewhat of a limbo: maybe the water hasn't absorbed any of the lectin and so is safe? Interestingly, [1] says: > It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins. But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads. EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1983.tb14831.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621....
- athrun 6y ago
  What a very interesting topic. I found a more recent paper [1] that concludes it is beneficial to soak the beans and then discard the soaking water prior to cooking. I prepare dry beans regularly and almost never discard the soaking water. Time to reconsider! [1] https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-et-al.pdf https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-...
ar-nelson 6y ago
This is a misconception about what aquafaba is. Aquafaba is not the soaking water, it's the cooking water. My usual process for cooking chickpeas is: - Soak overnight in a bowl. Throw this water out. - Boil for several hours in new water. Save this water, and boil it down further to make aquafaba. Not all chickpea recipes allow for this; for example, falafel is usually made with chickpeas that have been soaked but not boiled.
- ianai 6y ago
  How much more do you boil it down?
  - ar-nelson 6y ago
    It's a matter of taste and how much thickness you want. It's a tradeoff between thickness and amount of burnt-chickpea taste that you can tolerate. And it's fine if you don't cook it down at all. For 2 cups dry chickpeas + 8 cups water I sometimes cook it down for an extra hour on low heat.
scythe 6y ago
I was curious about this also. There could be FODMAPs in the soaking water of many legumes. For recipes with a small amount, it's probably small enough to be fine for all but the most sensitive individuals. Meringues, though, I don't know. https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods/ https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods...

warent 6y ago

I'm not sure if this is what it's referring to, but I've never used raw beans for aquafaba. It's precooked beans that are soaking in water that make the aquafaba. By that point hopefully you've already cooked the nasties out of the bean

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

jedimastert 6y ago

Mostly the "aquafaba" that I see referred to (admittedly in passing most of the time) is the liquid from canned chickpeas.

kevinmchugh 6y ago

AFAIK the main reason for soaking beans is to save cooking time and allow for even cooking. It may absorb some of the indigestible sugars, but I'm not positive. They won't hurt you, regardless, though they might cause embarrassment. Typically the liquid used is from canned chickpeas, which have been cooked, which ought to diminish those sugars. If you're cooking beans at home, you might want to add carrot and onion peels for flavoring the beans. The resulting broth will be very flavorful and worth saving, but less useful for baking, since it's not neutrally flavored.

tgb 6y ago

This is an interesting point. I've taken to cooking beans from dry in a pressure cooker and usually in a "meal" that gets cooked with it at the same time. So I can't discard the water. The toxins in uncooked beans are real, but does the heat of cooking destroy them? It looks like the answer is yes [1], which says that "No significant lectin changes were observed after soaking the beans" but that the lectin levels are undetectable in cooked beans. (I.e. cooking, not soaking is the important part.) That does leave your question in somewhat of a limbo: maybe the water hasn't absorbed any of the lectin and so is safe? Interestingly, [1] says: > It appears that cooking beans to the point where they might be considered edible is more than sufficient to destroy virtually all of the hemagglutinating activity of lectins. But then the authors seem somewhat puzzled as to why anyone is reported symptoms of lectin poisoning - who's eating beans that are inedible in texture and hardness? They hypothesize raw food junkie's in salads. EDIT: I'm more skeptical now that any conclusions can be drawn from this paper. They mention leaching as an important factor at one point, so maybe heat just makes leaching happen at an appreciable rate. And your uncooked water might still have lectin at levels they couldn't observe (since we're looking at it indirectly by only measuring the bean's content) and still be toxic. You only need 5 raw kidney beans to have symptoms. [1] https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621.1983.tb14831.x https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1365-2621....

athrun 6y ago
What a very interesting topic. I found a more recent paper [1] that concludes it is beneficial to soak the beans and then discard the soaking water prior to cooking. I prepare dry beans regularly and almost never discard the soaking water. Time to reconsider! [1] https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-et-al.pdf https://nuppre.paginas.ufsc.br/files/2014/04/2010-Fernandes-...

ar-nelson 6y ago

This is a misconception about what aquafaba is. Aquafaba is not the soaking water, it's the cooking water. My usual process for cooking chickpeas is: - Soak overnight in a bowl. Throw this water out. - Boil for several hours in new water. Save this water, and boil it down further to make aquafaba. Not all chickpea recipes allow for this; for example, falafel is usually made with chickpeas that have been soaked but not boiled.

ianai 6y ago
How much more do you boil it down?
- ar-nelson 6y ago
  It's a matter of taste and how much thickness you want. It's a tradeoff between thickness and amount of burnt-chickpea taste that you can tolerate. And it's fine if you don't cook it down at all. For 2 cups dry chickpeas + 8 cups water I sometimes cook it down for an extra hour on low heat.

scythe 6y ago

I was curious about this also. There could be FODMAPs in the soaking water of many legumes. For recipes with a small amount, it's probably small enough to be fine for all but the most sensitive individuals. Meringues, though, I don't know. https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods/ https://www.soscuisine.com/blog/top-5-confusing-fodmap-foods...