 Hello and welcome to the CNM Veggie Walk. My name's Linda Witzoli and today we're at the beautiful Plough Hatch Farm in West Sussex. This is a biodynamic and organic farm and today we're going to be having a look around to see what fruits and vegetables are growing at this time of year. I'll tell you a little bit more about their nutritional content, how you can incorporate them into your diet, and what to look out for when you're buying and storing these foods. So let's have a look around and see what we can find today, shall we? Here we have some lovely green beans and the green beans are part of the legume vegetable family, which also comprises sugar snap peas and munch 2 peas. And the legume vegetables are actually vegetables that are the immature seeds and pods of legumes, so ones that would then carry on to become lentils and beans and pulses. And they're a fantastic crossover food because they actually contain the protein content of legumes and also the fiber and the nutritional content of vegetables. So they're really great crossover food that contains both of these. Compared to their legume counterparts, they actually have less carbohydrate. So they're really great for blood sugar regulation and blood sugar balancing because they have a lower glycemic index. They contain a lot of vitamins and minerals, particularly vitamin A, vitamin C, vitamin K, and a lot of the B vitamins and folate, but they also contain calcium and iron and phosphorus and manganese. And they're a fantastic source of silicon as well, which is a fantastic nutrient that is needed for bone health and connective tissue support. And the silicon content in green beans is actually in a really absorbable form for the body, so it is a really great source of that mineral. In terms of energetics, they are summer crops. So they are very cooling and hydrating and detoxifying. So they're great in the summer to sort of cool down the summer heat to clear out excess heat in the body and also to clear out any inflammation. They have, as I said, a lot of, they have some protein content and a lot of fiber, so they're really great for digestive health and also for immune health. They contain vitamin C, zinc, and carotenoids. When you're looking at buying green beans, you want to ideally buy them from a shop or a farmer's market where you can actually select the best ones, making sure that the ones that you pick are a lovely green, vibrant color, so you know that they're rich in chlorophyll, that they are very solid and they snap when broken and that they don't have any bruising. And the best way to store them is in a refrigerator. Because of the compounds that they have, the vitamin C and the carotenoids, those are quite, and some of the B vitamins as well, are quite heat sensitive and sensitive to light. You want to make sure that you refrigerate them so that their nutritional content is kept longer. You can actually store them up to seven days in the refrigerator. The best way to cook green beans, again, is to just lightly steam them to preserve all its nutrients or you could saute them with some shiitake mushrooms, for example, for an extra immune boost. You could steam them and serve them with some slithered almonds or they're one of the main components in a salad, salad nisoise, a French salad, which contains tuna as well and other vegetables. So really it's a fantastic vegetable to have in the summertime. It's cooling, it contains protein, it contains fiber for digestion, it contains lots of vitamins and minerals and it's just really an all-round great crossover vegetable.