Beans w/o gas article ... please help me decipher

[toadspittle]

Scientific American ran this article online:

Beans No Longer a Gas

Basically, researchers have discovered how to eliminate the intestinal-gas-causing compounds in dry beans. How? I’m not really sure.

A team led by Marisela Granito of the Food Analysis Laboratory at Simon Bolivar University in Venezuela tested the effects of fermentation–a reaction in which complex organic compounds are split into relatively simple substances–on dry beans. They tested two types of fermentation: a controlled version, in which yeast is first added to the beans, and the natural variety, which proceeds without the addition of yeast.

So these are dry beans, and no yeast is added. So what exactly do they do to cause fermentation? Or do they soak them, let naturally occuring yeasts present on the beans ferment them, and then dry them out again?

[Colophon]

Well, old bean, “dry fermentation” doesn’t necessarily mean that the beans are completely dry, only that no water is added. So the beans are probably left to stew in their own juice, as it were. Google on “dry fermentation” for details. Coffee undergoes a similar process before roasting.

It appears that fermenting beans is not a new idea:

Fermented cereals “are widely used in Africa. Fermented legumes are often used in Indonesia and other Asian countries. The advantage … is that naturally occurring bacteria [make the food acidic]. This improves the taste and also has the advantage that diarrhoea-causing germs cannot grow so easily. …Because of lack of time and fuel, mothers are usually not able to prepare fresh food throughout the day, especially for feeding young children who need several meals a day. In a recent study in Ghana, it was found that the number of diarrhoea-causing organisms in food prepared using fermentation was less than half that in food which had been prepared freshly, then left lying around. The fermentation process also breaks down some of the fiber in the food and increases iron absorption. [The traditional process lasts 48 hours, not long enough to produce alcohol.] Why have people stopped using fermented food? A study in Kenya suggests that health workers feel that traditional fermented foods are not modern, and should be discouraged.”

(http://www.echonet.org/tropicalag/aztext/azch10nu.htm)

[Nametag]

I don’t see that anything was asked about “dry fermentation,” r_k. The question is “what naturally ferments beans?” The answer is “it depends.” Although yeasts (such as were used in the study) are a possibility, I think that anaerobic bacteria are more likely. Anaerobic bacteria (which produce lactic acid) are the natural fermenters of many crops, but I can’t find anything about legumes.

[toadspittle]

So, how does all this differ from normal beans? Do beans fresh from the field autoimatically start fermenting unless we do something to arrest the process? Do harvesters currently take beans and flash-dry them before they have the chance to ferment at all? Or is some other, non-yeast product/critter added to the beans? Do the anaerobic bacteria naturally occur on the beans/other crops?