So I went into a Chinese Grocery store the other day and asked if they sold black soy beans and was told "soy beans only come in white". They then tried to sell me black beans (the kind that’s used in Asian dishes like ‘beef and black bean’). Are black beans and black soy beans the same thing? Today I was in a gourmet food store and found a bag of black beans labelled ‘Canadian Black’ but the shop assistant didn’t know anything about them and there was no other information on the bag. Can anybody help me on this?

Zedgirl

Black beans are black beans(beef and black bean). Not black soy. Soy beans are white and are used to make many things, coloured at the whim of the manufacturer. Canadian Black are another type of lentil altogether.
Hope this helps

So when they talk on this forum about 'Eden' brand black soy beans to use in chili etc. are they simply white soy beans that have been coloured black?

There is such a thing as black soy beans and the only place I've ever seen them is in a Japanese food store. In Japanese, they're called kuromame.

If you do a Google search and click on images, you can see pictures of them.

The fermented or salted black beans found in Chinese grocery stores are also made from black soy beans.

Karen

Thanks Karen
I tried looking in a Japanese food store first and was told to go to a Chinese food store!
So I think I understand now...black beans are just fermented/salted black soy beans and 'Canadian Blacks' are lentils?...none of which I can put in chili I assume.

I'm not too sure what Canadian Black Beans are because I've never heard of them! They could be lentils because a lot of lentils are grown in Canada or they could be black beans grown in Canada.

If you're really hankering for beans in your chili, you can use the plain old yellow soy beans. The do have a low carb count.

Karen

The Canadian Black Beans look like beans not lentils. As far as I know lentils are round and these are bean shape. I'll give the chili dilemma some thought...can probably do without the beans.
By the way thanks for the google tip on doing an 'image' search. If you knew the amount of hours I've wasted trying to find pictures of different stuff to find that that was all I had to do!! My d/h is thrilled as well.

They're not Black Turtle Beans by any chance? I don't think they're related to soybeans but a lot are grown in Canada and the US.

Emily

The Eden brand "black soybeans" ARE a type of soy bean and they ARE black. They are smaller in size than regular yellow soybeans, and have a slightly lower protein and fat content, and slightly higher starch content. They also have a milder flavour; less soy-ey.

I have searched high and low for information about these ... they are not very popular outside of China and Japan. There's only a few growers in the US ... and the Eden company is the only major producer of a canned product. One member a long time ago posted that she had found dry black soy beans at a natural foods store, but had to buy in bulk, like a 10 lb bag

There's a lot of confusion and controversy over the true carb content of the Eden canned organic black soy beans. The label currently reads .. 8g carbs, 7g fiber ... so folks subtract the fiber and come up with Yay!! 1g net carbs. Wow, really super low carb beans!! Wrong! The fiber has been pre-subtracted and the beans do provide a full 8g net carbs per ½ cup serving. Remember my finding that these black soy beans have a higher starch content than regular yellow soy beans? Anyway .. there has been heated discussion on the topic, including emails from the Eden company .. check out this thread for more info.

That being said, 8g net carbs is still lower than most other beans, and if you're really craving chili or black bean soup, these may be a good option if you stretch them out with lots of other LC veggies and meat.


hth,

Doreen

QuoteL
kuromame.

If you do a Google search and click on images, you can see pictures of them.
I don't have an "Images" icon to click on can you help?

Hi Doreen

I’ve decided to go without the black beans. I don’t crave beans or chili….just thought it would be nice for a change.
As far as the controversy over carb counts go it’s not just beans it seems. I’m constantly coming across conflicting carb counts when I read labels and look up different books and carb counters on the web. Eggs are a prime example. My egg carton lists a serve of two 59g eggs as having 0.3g carbs. Other counts I’ve seen for eggs claim they’re 0.6, 0.75 and 0 per egg (I’m assuming a rounding down on the 0 count). Do you think Australian chickens eat less sugar ? Do you always go with the highest carb count to be on the safe side?

Going2doit

Was your question how to do a Google image search?
If so when you go to do the Google site you’ll see individual blue tabs across the top of the page labeled Web, Images, Groups etc. Just hit the image tab when you do your search and voila…pictures!

Another black bean sighting...

Found them this week in a Vietnamese/Thai/Laotian store.

About the eggs, the carb count will vary depending on the size, but 0 is just plain silly.

Karen

Thanks for the info on Google. So simple.
Now for another question
How do I insert a quote from another message into a response ???
Cheers

If you look at the bottom of all posts, you'll see some little icons. The last one (on the far right) says 'quote'. Just click this icon on the post you want to quote from and it does it for you. Then I think you just delete the text you don't want included (dont delete the stuff in brackets at the beginning and the end though). I haven't done it before now but I just did a test in the 'testing' forum and it worked. Do you know about this part of the forum?

Hey it does work thanks for your info