Pea processing attracting wide interest

Pea processing attracting wide interest

The Prairies has become a hotbed for ingredient manufacturing based on the crop

The French company Roquette may have kicked off the pea party when it announced a protein-processing facility at Portage la Prairie earlier this year — but it’s no longer the only guest. In September Academy Award-winning film director James Cameron announced he would be investing in a new multimillion-dollar pea-processing plant in Vanscoy, Sask. As

Workers assemble the plant-based hamburger patties during a media tour of Impossible Foods labs and processing plant in Redwood City, California.

Packers put plants on plates

Meat packers can sense the shifting tide and are rebranding themselves as protein companies

Some major North American meat producers are clearing room on their plates for plant-based substitutes. They’re hedging their bets as consumer tastes shift and high-tech startups seek to create meat alternatives that taste like the real thing. The trend was highlighted on Monday when Tyson Foods, the biggest U.S. chicken processor, took a five per


Brandon Clayton (l) shows Tyffany Wentoniw, Abraham Lemus and Elvis Mingano how to make crepes using chickpea flour at Elmwood High School.

Bean Team spreads word on pulse crops

The Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers is bringing nutritional information into the province’s schools

“It tastes just the same as any other crepe I’ve had,” said a slightly surprised Gage Anderson. “It tastes good.” Anderson and two dozen other students at Winnipeg’s Elmwood High School made the crepes using chickpea flour last week, as part of a new outreach initiative launched by Manitoba Pulse and Soybean Growers. In recognition

green beans

Spillin’ the beans about getting kids to eat vegetables

Prairie Fare: Snappy Green Beans with Basil Dip

If I placed all the green beans I cut as a child from end to end, they’d probably reach from Fargo to Jamestown. Maybe the trail of beans only seems to have covered 100 miles. I became quite efficient at cutting beans after modifying my cutting techniques. I tried several different knives and finally decided


chickpeas in a testing lab

VIDEO: Putting more ‘superfood’ in the North American diet

It’s hardly an exaggeration to call pulses a ‘superfood’ — they’re high in protein and other nutrients, they’ve been proven to reduce bad cholesterol and they provide free nitrogen for the farmers who grow them. But while they’re a staple in diets in the Middle East, consumption is low in North America. In this video,

Containers of curry dip

New ways to eat pulses

Recipe Swap

If you seldom eat beans, peas, lentils or chickpeas, your kids will probably someday wonder what you were eating. All kinds of pulse-based foods are popping up on store shelves, and are increasingly popular among a younger generation trying to eat healthier and smarter than their parents. That might have sounded like mission impossible not


photo: thinkstock

Squirrels know best: nuts make you live longer

Afew nuts a day might make you live longer, a newly published study in the New England Journal of Medicine says. “Compared with those who did not eat nuts, individuals who consumed nuts (serving size of one ounce) seven or more times per week had a 20 per cent lower death rate and this association

Bean leaves don’t let the bedbugs bite

A centuries-old remedy of spreading kidney bean leaves 
on the bedroom floor traps the biting insects

Scientists at University of California Irvine and University of Kentucky are trying to mimic a traditional Balkan bedbug remedy to help fight the bedroom scourge. Their work was motivated by a centuries-old remedy for bedbugs formerly used in Bulgaria, Serbia and other southeast European countries. Kidney bean leaves were strewn on the floor next to


Pulse crops eyed for fast-tracked registration

Lentil, field pea, field bean and faba bean growers are being asked to consider a proposal under which new varieties submitted for federal registration could skip one or two levels of assessment they now receive. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency last week released a draft discussion document as part of an overall review of the

Soybeans still picking up acres

At one time the edible bean workshops would have been the hot ticket at the Manitoba Special Crops Symposium and you’d be fighting for a chair. This year there were just a few scattered groups of growers listening to presentations on everything from harvest methods to seeding techniques and there were likely more empty chairs