The researchers identified two bacteria, Lactobacillus casei and Lactobacillus plantarum, which can be added to beans to minimize the distress caused by them, Marisela Granito of Simon Bolivar University in Caracas, Venezuela and colleagues reported.
Writing in the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, Granito and colleagues found that adding the two gut bacteria to beans before cooking them made them even less likely to cause flatulence.
Granito's team wanted to find out the bacteria responsible for making the beans less gassy if soaked in liquor from a previous batch.
When the researchers fermented black beans with the two bacteria, they found it decreased the soluble fiber content by more than 60 percent and lowered levels of raffinose, a compound known to cause gas, by 88 percent.
They fed the beans to rats and analyzed the rats' droppings to ensure that the beans were well-digested and kept their nutritional value.
