Years ago, when I had the room and the energy to grow beans for food storage, I tried a bag of Cranberry beans. I found them to have a rich flavor... a little nutty, almost a bit walnut taste. So, I grew them, dried them on the vine, stored them in jars and loved them! I am not a big fan of pinto beans, but will eat them if I have to. After storing some this year, I decided to compare pinto beans to cranberry beans, in terms of food value. What I discovered encouraged me to store some again.
Here are a few of the food value comparisons with pinto beans. The numbers I am giving show the advantage (some) of the cranberry bean over pinto.
1.59x more dietary fiber per 100 gm 17.97 more leucine per 100 g, 29.48 more polyunsaturated fatty acids, 12.39% more calcium, 1.59x more zinc. It has a lot more folate, like 15%. They are higher in protein. For complete information, just google the two and ask to compare. I found them to cook quickly and keep well. The two years we grew them, I found that they dried nicely on the vine. One year was rainy, so I pulled the vines and hung them in the garage. There were no mold issues. I would contribute that to the thin shell. Just a thought for some variety. I have one more.
