This article is reviewed by an expert
Have you ever eaten green gram dal or mung beans? It is a nutritious legume that offers a wide range of essential nutrients, making it an excellent addition to a healthy diet.
Let’s find out more about the nutritional value of green gram dal and its many health benefits in this article.
Nutritional Facts About Green Gram Dal or Mung Beans (1)
Green gram dal, also known as mung bean, offers a balanced combination of several essential nutrients, such as protein, dietary fibre, minerals, vitamins, and bioactive compounds.
One notable advantage of mung bean protein is its high digestibility compared to other legumes. To enhance the quality of protein intake, health experts recommended consuming mung beans in combination with cereals. Cereals are rich in sulphur-containing amino acids but lack lysine, and mung beans provide lysine.
Combining mung bean protein and rice protein in a ratio of 3:4 is also recommended to improve the protein quality for consumption.
Although mung beans offer numerous benefits, they also contain anti-nutritional factors that can affect the bioavailability of certain nutrients. One such factor is phytic acid, which binds to important divalent cations like iron, zinc, calcium, and magnesium. These insoluble complexes hinder the absorption and utilisation of minerals in the small intestine. However, various processing methods, such as fermentation, germination, dehulling, and cooking, can help mitigate the impact of these anti-nutritional factors easily.
Benefits of Green Gram Dal or Mung Beans (2)
Nerve Stimulation and Increased Appetite
Primary Benefits: Green gram dal is rich in protein and phospholipids that help stimulate nerves and increase appetite.
Secondary Benefits: This further helps nourish important organs and improve overall nutrition.
Lipid-Lowering Effects
Primary Benefits: Polysaccharides present in green gram dal help enhance the activity of serum lipoprotein lipase (LPL), which promotes the hydrolysis of triglycerides in lipoproteins, resulting in a lipid-lowering effect.
Secondary Benefits: This helps not only prevent conditions like coronary heart disease and angina pectoris but also improves overall heart health.
Antimicrobial Properties
Primary Benefits: Green gram dal contains antimicrobial ingredients like tannins.
Secondary Benefits: These ingredients help accelerate local hemostasis and promote wound healing.
Anti-Ageing Effect
Primary Benefits: Green gram dal is a good source for extracting superoxide dismutase (SOD), which has excellent anti-ageing properties.
Secondary Benefits: This makes green gram dal highly beneficial for overall skin health and vitality.
Cholesterol Reduction
Primary Benefits: Specific globulin and polysaccharide components found in green gram dal help promote the breakdown of animal cholesterol into cholic acid in the liver.
Secondary Benefits: This process, in turn, accelerates the secretion of bile salts and reduces the intestinal absorption of cholesterol.
Anti-Allergic Effects
Primary Benefits: Clinical trials have shown that green gram dal’s active ingredients have anti-allergic effects.
Secondary Benefits: This makes it highly beneficial for treating conditions like hives and other allergic reactions.
Kidney and Liver Protection
Primary Benefits: Green gram dal is rich in trypsin inhibitors, which protect the liver and reduce protein breakdown.
Secondary Benefits: These properties contribute to kidney protection and liver health.
Gastrointestinal Protection
Primary Benefits: The high protein content in fresh mung bean milk helps protect the gastrointestinal mucosa when consumed orally.
Secondary Benefits: Additionally, proteins, tannins, and flavonoids in green gram dal help bind with organophosphorus pesticides, mercury, arsenic, and lead compounds, forming precipitates. This helps reduce or eliminate their toxicity by hindering gastrointestinal absorption.
The Final Takeaway
Green gram dal, or mung beans, is a highly nutritious legume that offers a wide range of essential nutrients. Its balanced combination of protein, dietary fibre, minerals, vitamins, and bioactive compounds makes it an excellent choice for a healthy diet.
Incorporate green gram dal into your diet now and see the difference in your health yourself.
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Disclaimer: This article is written from a health and lifestyle perspective.
