How a ‘happiness’ chemical in protein- and vitamin-packed fava beans can totally change your mood

By Liam On Jul 29, 2024

The search for happiness has produced some crazy, bad and, frankly, rather foolish ideas in recent years.

Practicing yoga with goats. Immersing yourself in giant vats of ice water. Eating only purple food. Meditating upside down. Microdosing with magic mushrooms.

In fact, it seems like we’ll do anything to chase away the blues and add a little extra energy and enthusiasm to our daily lives.

The latest happiness craze is being hailed as the humble fad bean — Vicia faba, or broad bean — with a long list of health benefits that dwarfs even spinach.

For starters, it’s packed with protein, fiber, iron, and vitamin C. It’s also good for bone health, fighting high blood pressure and anemia. It can also help lower cholesterol, boost immunity, and promote weight loss.

The latest happiness craze is heralded as the humble broad bean – Vicia faba, or fava bean – with a long list of health benefits that dwarfs even spinach

But academics say this is peanuts compared to the impact fava beans – ideally with the skins on – can have on our emotional well-being.

But academics say this is small stuff compared to the impact fava beans (preferably with the skin on) can have on our emotional well-being.

Jamie Oliver’s Orzo with Broad Beans

Ingredients: 1 tsp rose harissa; red wine vinegar; olive oil; 1 kg ripe cherry tomatoes, on the vine; 1 bunch spring onions; 1 bulb garlic; 1 bunch soft herbs such as basil, dill, mint; 500 g broad beans, fresh or frozen; 500 g orzo pasta; extra virgin olive oil

Method:

– Preheat the oven to 150°C/300°F/gas mark 2.

– Mix the harissa in a roasting tin with 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.

– Add the tomatoes, spring onions and unpeeled garlic cloves. Toss and roast for 1 hour.

– Squeeze the roasted garlic from its skin, finely chop it with the spring onions and most of the herb leaves and scrape it into a pan.

– Add the roasted tomatoes to the pan.

– Heat the sauce while you cook the broad beans for 2 minutes.

– Cook the pasta according to the instructions on the package, drain and mix with the sauce and beans.

– Serve in a bowl with the remaining herbs and olive oil.

This is due to the exceptionally high concentrations of levodopa, or L-dopa, a naturally occurring chemical used in the treatment of Parkinson’s disease but also linked to long-term improvements in mood, emotions and, most importantly, happiness levels.

According to Dr. Nadia Mohd-Radzman, a researcher and botanist at the University of Cambridge who also works at the Entrepreneurship Lab at King’s College Cambridge, it even helps improve a condition called anhedonia: the inability to feel or experience pleasure.

And it’s so effective that she insists that if we just ate more of them, fava beans could completely transform the health and happiness of the nation.

“That’s my mission,” she said in a recent interview. “To make the country love the broad bean.”

And to achieve this goal, she does everything she can to promote the consumption of the great British broad bean: she improves the varieties, suggests tempting recipes and gives a series of lectures on these beans.

It is an impressive and brave plan, but Dr. Mohd-Radzman still has his work cut out for him.

Because broad beans, originally from the Middle East but cultivated in Britain since the Iron Age, are not universally loved.

While some of us love them, with or without the skin, and get super excited when they’re in season, most people seem to hate them.

According to my (admittedly very crude) poll, at least two out of three British adults and most children seem to dislike the taste, texture, shape, rubbery skin – in fact, everything about them.

Some say they taste woolly. Others don’t like the ‘mouthfeel’. Many people have strong opinions about whether they should be peeled or not.

A few take it a step further. In her book, The Flavour Thesaurus: More Flavours (Bloomsbury), Niki Segnit categorises them as “half plant, half mammal” for their “darkly bloody, organ-meaty, slightly cheesy” flavour.

Meanwhile, there are endless, lively discussions going on over on Mumsnet in which the beans are dismissed as ‘bitter’, ‘unpleasant’, ‘rubbery’, ‘truly disgusting’ and, even more worryingly, ‘looking and tasting like dead fingertips’.

Broad beans are packed with protein, fiber, iron and vitamin C

Broad beans are also good for bone health, combating high blood pressure and anemia. They can also help lower cholesterol, boost immunity and promote weight loss.

That may seem a bit extreme, but we’re not the first to hate them. Pythagoras, the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician, ordered his followers not to eat them because of their perceived resemblance to a fetus. He said that doing so would be like eating human flesh.

Ottolenghi’s broad bean and herb salad

Ingredients: 50g pearl barley; 300g broad beans, fresh or frozen; 1 head baby lettuce; 1 tbsp preserved lemon zest, finely chopped; 15g each basil and mint leaves, roughly torn; 1 tsp dried mint; 1 tbsp lemon juice; 60ml olive oil; salt and black pepper; 60g soft goat’s cheese; ¾ tsp pink peppercorns

Method:

– Cook the pearl barley in boiling water for 30-35 minutes until al dente. Then rinse with cold water and let it drain.

– Boil the broad beans for two minutes, drain and cool under cold water.

If necessary, peel the beans. In a bowl, mix the beans, barley, lettuce, preserved lemon, herbs, lemon juice and olive oil.

– Season to taste and add more olive oil if necessary.

– Place the salad in serving bowls, crumble the goat cheese over it and sprinkle with the crushed pink peppercorns

So it’s perhaps no surprise that while British farmers harvest around 740,000 tonnes of broad beans each year, we only eat a fraction. Most are used as animal feed or exported to Egypt, where they are used to make falafel as an alternative to chickpeas.

I think that’s a shame.

Not least because it is an efficient, sustainable and highly nutritious crop that our farmers are very good at growing.

But more importantly, according to Dr. Mohd-Radzman, if we ate more fava beans, we would all be happier and embrace life with a smile and a laugh on our lips.

And she’s not the only one begging us to reconsider our relationship with fava beans.

A team of scientists from the University of Reading recently suggested that Britons should switch to bread made with broad beans, arguing that it would be healthier than wheat breads, with an ‘improved nutritional profile’ and better for the environment.

Others have spoken highly of broad bean milk. An interesting idea, but perhaps not something you want in your cappuccino.

Broad beans have another unusual benefit, although this one is strictly “non-nutritive.” Researchers at Mashhad University in Iran recently discovered that they can also slow hair growth, “without any significant side effects.”

For their study, a cream containing 20 percent bean content was applied to the armpits of 25 women twice a day for three months. This reduced the number and thickness of hairs with “no significant side effects.”

Once again, it is L-dopa that does the magic. It is converted by the body into dopamine, which shrinks the blood vessels that stimulate hair growth.

However, fava beans should be treated with care. For it was not only Pythagoras who avoided them. A very small number of people in the Middle East and Mediterranean are susceptible to developing a rare blood disorder, hemolytic anemia, from eating fava beans.

But Dr. Mohd-Radzman has a solution. She says farmers can breed bean varieties with low levels of the triggering chemicals — and points out that scientists are also working on creating genetically modified beans without any chemicals.

So, all in all, a wonder food that can rival all others. If only more than a handful of us could be persuaded to actually eat them. Maybe the delicious recipes above will change your mind…