Grain Legumes and Their Dietary Impact: Overview

Grain legumes are Fabaceae plants whose dry seeds are consumed by humans for food. They stave off malnutrition in food-deficit regions and reduce diet-related diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and heart disease in food surplus regions. Grain legumes benefit from a unique symbiotic relationship with Rhizobium that frees legumes from the need to access soil sources of fixed nitrogen, but seed yield can be hampered by the plants' sensitivities to environmental stress. The global contribution of grain legumes on diets could be substantially enhanced by addressing constraints to consumption such as low digestibility, antinutritional factors, and stigmatization as the food of the poor.