Pea

Food · Legume · Food, Typed Supps

Left on the plant to mature and dry, a pea turns into something closer to a lentil than to the green peas in the freezer.

Stage by stage

Intake (Long cooking required): Extended cooking gelatinises the starch and softens cell walls enough for digestion to reach them.
Digestion (Very slow starch release): Starch trapped in intact cell walls digests slowly, giving one of the lowest glycaemic responses of any staple.
Absorption (Protein, iron and folate): Protein and folate absorb well; non-heme iron is limited by phytate and helped by vitamin C.
Large intestine (Fermented to short-chain fats): Resistant starch and fibre are fermented to butyrate, which also accounts for the wind.

Time to effect

Hours to weeks: Satiety over three to five hours; bowel habit and fermentation changes over one to two weeks of regular intake.

Allergens

None of the fourteen major allergens. Derived from what this food is, not from a product label.

Eating patterns

Fits: Vegan, Vegetarian, Pescatarian, Halal, Kosher, Gluten-free. Depends on the product: Low-FODMAP.

Satiety

186 on the satiety index, where white bread is 100 — high. Modelled from the Holt et al. (1995) measurements.

Environmental footprint

1 kg CO2e and 397 litres of freshwater per kg, matched to "Peas" in Poore & Nemecek (2018), Science 360.

Cost band

Cheap — roughly £2.2 per kg, as a band midpoint rather than a price.

Key nutrients

Plant protein
Dietary fibre
Folate
Potassium

Nutrition per 100g

Calories: 325
Protein: 23.3g
Carbohydrate: 43.6g
of which sugars: 2.6g
Fat: 2.3g
of which saturated: 0.3g
Fibre: 17.7g
Sodium: 12mg

Food vs. supplement

Pea protein isolate is now a common supplement and is genuinely useful, but it is the protein stripped of everything else. The whole dried pea supplies the same protein alongside 17.7g of fibre and 274mcg of folate per 100g, which the isolate does not.

Kitchen tip

Soak overnight, discard the soaking water and cook in fresh water — this leaches out much of what causes wind. Whole dried peas hold their shape; split peas, with the skins removed, collapse into soup and need no soaking.

Common myth

“Peas are peas — dried ones are just green peas without the water.” In reality: Removing water does not create protein and fibre. A dried mature pea has developed as a storage seed and carries around five times the protein and six times the fibre by weight of the immature green pea, which is really a vegetable.