Despite the perennial appearance of bean salads at prairie potlucks, Canadian families are not eating many of those salads or other pulse dishes, say industry officials.
Pulse Canada estimates the average Canadian consumes about 2.5 kilograms per year.
That pales in comparison to Mexico, where the average person eats 14 kg of beans per year, according to Agriculture Canada.
Only one percent of the average Canadian’s caloric intake comes from pulses versus 25 percent from cereal grains.
“We’re not eating a lot of pulses. We’re really not,” said Peter Watts, director of market innovation at Pulse Canada.
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Canada’s Food Guide to Healthy Eating recommends eating dry peas, lentils and beans more often.
The 2005 Dietary Guideline for Americans is more specific, calling on Americans to consume at least three cups of beans per week.
But Americans are doing no better than Canadians in obeying those guidelines, consuming an average of ½ a cup of beans per week, according to the U.S. Dry Bean Council.
If North Americans increased their bean consumption, it would eliminate many of the logistical headaches and payment problems associated with shipping the product all over the world, say crop traders.
“It’s a lot easier to sell domestic than it is to sell overseas,” said Ivan Sabourin, president of Roy Legumex Inc., one of Canada’s leading bean processing and exporting companies.
Pulse Canada is attempting to boost domestic consumption of peas, lentils, chickpeas and beans through its $3.2 million Pulse Innovation Project. It funds a series of human clinical trials that it hopes may lead to scientifically proven health claims about the benefits of eating pulses.
But little is happening in terms of specific domestic bean promotion, said Tammy Jones, executive manager of the Manitoba Pulse Growers Association.
Beans have been featured on CTV’s Great Tastes of Manitoba program and the association has produced a recipe booklet featured by dieticians at senior’s workshops, but there is no serious, concerted marketing campaign.
“It has been a pull rather than a push,” said Jones.
Part of the reason is that the bean industry is small and has meager resources. Farmers don’t want their limited check-off dollars diver-ted to a long-term and expensive project like building domestic demand at the expense of much-needed research and market access activities.
“It’s easier to see a return on investment on registering a new herbicide than it is for developing a cookbook,” said Jones.
That doesn’t mean the bean industry won’t keep plugging away on small projects to try and get a few more bean salads eaten at Canadian smorgasbords.
But there is a long way to go. Of the estimated 413,000 tonnes of beans on hand in Canada in 2006-07, only 53,000 tonnes are expected to be consumed domestically, much of that for seed.
“It will be baby steps more than anything,”
said Jones.
Chickpea salad
2 – 20 oz cans or 41/2 cups home-cooked chickpeas
4 green onions, trimmed and finely sliced
2 tbsp. lemon juice
3/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. finely ground black pepper
2 tbsp. minced cilantro
2 jalapenos, minces and seeded
1 red pepper
1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper
(or more if desired)
Mix all ingredients in a bowl and serve. Serves 10-15 people.
Source: Adapted from World of the East Vegetarian Cooking by Madhur Jaffrey
