Pulses are little marvels - protein packed lentils, peas and beans are cheap, good for health and help the soil. They're central to many food cultures including Italy and France but as a nation we eat very few other than baked beans. Now the Food and Agriculture Organisation has announced the 'Year of the Pulse' to encourage us to eat more but they may be met with reluctance from some quarters.

Sheila Dillon's panel will kick off any tarnished reputation of wind and worthiness with tips on how to prepare pulses with ease and how to choose them. Chef Sanjay Kumar and cookery expert and author Jenny Chandler get cooking in the studio with a breakfast sambhar from Goa and 'black badgers and bacon' - a traditional Black Country dish better known as grey peas and bacon which tastes far better than the name would suggest.

Farmers across the UK grow fava beans to help enrich the soil yet most of them are exported or fed to animals. Nick Saltmarsh was so shocked when he learnt this that he set up a company to market British beans to consumers and he's now asking farmers to grow other varieties especially. In addition to dried and tinned pulses he's selling them as snacks and flours and looking into pastas and other uses for them. Sheila's also discovered a beer made from British fava beans and now chocolate covered pulses are hitting the shelves. It's a hard job but someone's got to try them for you.

Presented by Sheila Dillon Produced by Anne-Marie Bullock.

Raising the Pulse 28:25 Share

The Food Programme

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Raising the Pulse