Beautiful Bean Sandwich

Steven Callagan was a heavy, unhealthy fellow who completely switched his life around. His new enthusiasm for “right living” is contagious and he’s even penned an e-book about his experience.

I asked Steven if he’d share a recipe and what follows is from his email. I think he’s pretty inspirtational, and flattering:

I eat two bean sandwiches every day of the week. I eat one for lunch and I eat one on the way home from work. On the weekends, to prep for my bean sandwiches, I cook two pounds of beans and zap them in my food processor, adding just a tiny bit of water at a time, until I have a paste, which I call my bean spread. It would be called hummus if I used chickpeas or garbanzo beans. I like to use at least two different kinds of beans, like Rancho Gordo Yellow Indian Woman Beans and Rancho Gordo Good Mother Stallard Beans, so that I can get a variety of nutrients and a combination of flavors all combined into one bean spread.

I use my bean spread just like I used to use peanut butter. I spread my bean spread on whole grain low sodium bread (sometimes I spread my bean spread on both pieces of bread). I sprinkle on some salt free herbs and spices, usually my own blend of rosemary, thyme, sage, and cinnamon that I grind up into a powder with one of those small herb or coffee grinders. I also like to add Rancho Gordo Oregano Indio and Rancho Gordo New Mexican Red Chile Powder to my herb and spice mix when I really want to flavor it up. Then I add some veggies, like lettuce, onion, shredded carrots, cucumber, and tomato. Done. One beautiful bean sandwich ready to eat. Repeat as needed.

I don’t cook with salt because salt retains water in my body, which thickens my blood and strains my heart. I don’t cook with oil because oil clogs the arteries of my heart and it clogs my cells, preventing my natural insulin from delivering glucose to my cells, leaving the glucose in my blood, raising my blood sugar levels, causing diabetes.

It took six months before I could taste food cooked without salt and oil, eight months before I liked food cooked without salt and oil, and ten months before I preferred food cooked without salt and oil. Now, everything I eat tastes sweet to me. I can even taste the natural sugar that is present in beans. That’s right, those beans that tasted so dull and bland to me twenty two months ago, because my taste buds were over saturated with all the salt that was in the food that I was eating, now actually taste sweet to me, and I can now taste all of the wonderfully subtle and complex flavors that are present in all of the wonderful varieties of heirloom beans offered by you and Rancho Gordo.

I can not thank you enough for all of the wonderful work that you do to bring the most fabulous beans in the world to market and for helping to make the world a healthier place. I have eaten a lot of beans in the last twenty two months and I can say without reservation that Rancho Gordo Heirloom Beans are by far the freshest dried beans that I have tasted. The subtleties and the complexities of their flavors are truly spectacular.

And for better or worse, if I hadn’t of had my heart attack, and if I hadn’t of had severe diabetes, and if I hadn’t of been forced to cook for myself without salt or oil, and if you hadn’t of brought the most fabulous beans to market, I would never have been able to appreciate the beauty that beans are. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Here’s the Amazon link to my book, Bean Up: How I Beat Heart Disease, Diabetes, & High Cholesterol.