Broad beans could be the cure to Britain’s blues, says Cambridge research scientist

Nadia Mohd-Radzman is a botanist on a mission. The Cambridge University researcher wants the UK to recognise the wonders of a crop that she believes could transform the nation’s health. Hence her campaigning – for the broad bean.

Vicia faba has a host of special properties, she argues. It is rich in protein, fibre and iron, for example. More importantly, it contains chemicals that are linked to lasting improvements in the moods and emotions in those who consume them, Mohd-Radzman told the Observer .

For these reasons, Britain should recognise the worth of a legume that has been ignored for too long, claims the scientist, who has just launched a campaign to boost the British broad bean. This will include moves to improve its varieties, the publishing of recipes for making the bean more appetising and the organising of lectures and demonstrations to outline the benefits of an unfairly underappreciated crop.

“The broad bean could do so much good for people in this country if they could be persuaded to eat it,” she says. “And that is my mission. To get the country to love the broad bean.”

Broad beans were first grown in the Middle East but have been cultivated in Britain since the iron age. About 740,000 tonnes are harvested each year from about 170,000 hectares of UK land.

“However a great deal of that crop is used for animal feed, with much of the rest being exported to Egypt, where it is used, instead of chickpeas, to make falafels,” added Mohd-Radzman, a researcher at the Sainsbury laboratory, Cambridge. “We should be using it ourselves.”

Nor is Mohd-Radzman’s broad bean campaign the only bid to get Britons to eat more Vicia faba . Scientists at Reading University recently proposed that Britain should switch to eating bread made with it because the end product would be more sustainable and would also make it easy to deliver key nutrients to people.

However, it is the ingredient levodopa, or L-dopa, which is of special interest to Mohd-Radzman, who also works at the Entrepreneurship Lab of King’s College Cambridge. It is used in the clinical treatment of people with Parkinson’s – and broad beans contain high levels of the compound.

“The crucial point is that L-dopa has been shown to be very effective in treating the condition known as anhedonia, which essentially is the inability to feel or experience pleasure. And that is why I believe the broad bean is important.

“We have a major problem with growing numbers of young people experiencing mental health problems in the UK today, and helping them eat a proper, healthy diet is going to be crucial in tackling this. The broad bean will be our first line of attack.”

Working with the William Templeton Foundation for Young People’s Mental Health, Mohd-Radzman has focused on finding inexpensive and accessible ways to improve diets. “The broad bean is cheap and accessible and has known beneficial effects, so that is why I am promoting it at talks and demonstrations.”

The broad bean comes with a chequered history, however. It is also known as the fava bean, and under this name it was linked by the ancient Greeks to death and decay. The mathematician and philosopher Pythagoras ordered his followers not to eat them.

Related: Setting pulses racing: the Reading scientists perfecting broad bean bread

One reason for this unpopularity arises from the fact that eating fava beans can trigger a disease called favism in a small number of vulnerable people in Mediterranean countries and the Middle East. These individuals can develop a blood disorder known as haemolytic anaemia.

“Obviously that is an issue that has to be looked at,” said Mohd-Radzman. “One solution is to find broad bean varieties that contain low levels of the chemicals that trigger favism in susceptible people. However, the real solution is to create versions that have been genetically edited using Crispr technology and which contain no traces of the chemicals that trigger favism – and that is what we have started working on.”

In the meantime, Mohd-Radzman is continuing to find more and more ways to get broad beans into our diets. “You can make a milk from them. You can fry them with salt. You can even ferment them with chilli to make a paste like kimchi. You can make salads with them or mix them with chorizo. You can do all sorts of things with broad beans. They are incredibly adaptable.”