Peas

Were peas something you were forced to eat as a kid and you couldn’t leave the table until you ate your peas? It seems children over the years has had something against the standard green pea! But they shouldn’t!

Green peas if picked young can be eaten whole. It’s only when they are more mature and the peas are larger that the pods get stringier and hard to chew and digest. So green peas are usually shelled, or need to be shelled. Although technically a legume, they are more similar to basic green vegetables than their dried bean cousins which are starchier.

They have the highest vitamin C content of all the legumes, but only of course if eaten raw. They are fairly high in B vitamins including folic acid, high in vitamin A and have some good levels of minerals iron, potassium, calcium and magnesium. They also contain some vitamin E. And even though they are green they contain the phytonutrient beta-carotene which often gets mistaken for only orange vegetables such as carrots.

They can be beneficial by harmonizing digestion by reducing the workload, they can be helpful to stop hiccupping! Try it next time and see! They can be good for boils and other skin eruptions too. But just don’t eat too many green peas as they can have a laxative effect, although good if you have constipation.

So next time you seen the old standard green pea, you might give it more credit for the nutrients it has, instead of the vegetable that gets pushed around the plate….