Beans are a versatile, inexpensive staple that can boost essential nutrients in a diet, especially for people in low-resource areas where food options are limited. ###To get the most out of these legumes, new research suggests choosing fast-cooking dry beans could be the way to go. ###A study food with magnesium citratein American Chemistry Society’s Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry found that fast-cooking beans retained more protein, iron and other minerals than ‘slower’ pure encapsulations calcium magnesiumdry beans.###According to the World Health Organization about two billion people around the world are estimated to be deficient in key vitamins and minerals, including iron and zinc. ###Dry beans could help address these deficiencies, but they often take a long time to cook. ###This can deter people from adding them to meals. ###To prepare food, many people with limited resources rely on burning wood, charcoal or other biofuels that can require a lot of time to gather or a relatively high percentage of their income. ###For those reasons, faster-cooking beans would be a good dietary option, but whether they carry the same nutritional value as slower-cooking varieties was unknown. ###So Karen A. Cichy, from the US Department of Agriculture, and colleagues set out to test them.### The researchers analyzed the nutritional value of 12 fast-, modcalcium citrate 1250 mgerate- and slow-cooking dry bean cultivars from four classes: yellow, cranberry, light rediron ferrous gluconate 30 mg kidney and red mottled. ###The speedier beans maintained higher protein and mineral content after they were prepared than the moderate- and slow-cooking varieties. ###For example, the fast-cooking yellow bean Cebo Cela contained 20% more protein, 10% more iron and 10% more zinc than the yellow bean Canacalcium d3 solgarrio, which took twice as long to prepare. ###Further testing showed that the iron bioavailability — the amount that a person’s body would absorb — is also higher in the quicker-cooking beans in each of the four classes examined.###The authors acknowledge funding from the US Agency for International Development, the US Department of Agriculture and the National Cancer Institute.