Traditionally Made Hummus is Healthier
Canned foods are not hardly as healthy as fresh and dried ones. Specifically, when using canned chickpeas to make hummus, you loose half the nutrients.
The first and most important thing to check when looking for a good hummus recipe, is a use of dried chickpeas instead of canned ones.
Most of the recipes for homemade hummus found on the web, are based on the latter (canned chickpeas a.k.a garbanzo beens). To those who are acquainted with the original flavor of hummus (not the industrial packaged type, that is), this probably sound like a bad idea in the first place, but many people think that canned chickpeas are a reasonable substitute.
Here's a short list of examples for thr nutritional differences between cooked dried chickpeas and canned ones.
Minerals. Canned chickpeas contain 52% more sodium than cooked chickpeas, although in the process of making the final product (the hummus, that is), this might change. Sodium is found in large ammounts in most industrial foods.
Also, canned chickpeas contain 48% less Iron, 42% less Copper, about 30% less Magnesium, Phosphors and Potassium up to 25 percent less Zinc, Calcium and Selenium.
Vitamins. Vitamin C is not affected by cooking and can-conserving. The canned chickpeas contain 55-75% less Niacin and Folate though.
Amino Acids. Chickpeas contain 18 essential amino acids, about 35% of which are absent from the canned product.
Omega-3. About 48% of the Omega-3 fatty acids found in dried chickpeas after it is cooked, are absent from the canned product. On the other hand, the Tahini (second most important ingredient in hummus) contains a triple amount of Omega-3.
Summery
Canned chickpeas are nutritionally poor compared to cooked chickpeas. In general, about 50 percent of the nutrients are lost, and in some cases even more.
Shooky Galili is the editor of The Hummus Blog, offering not only hummus nutritional facts but also news, reviews, recipes and articles about hummus and other middle-eastern foods.
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com
