BEANS

 
Beans is a common name for large plant seeds in pods consumed by humans and animals in the family Fabaceae.


Beans were originally referred to as seeds from the broad, or fava bean, but was later expanded to include members of the New World genus Phaseolus, such as the common bean and runner bean, and also later included the related genus Vigna. The word is now referred to other Old world plants such as chickpeas, soybeans, peas, vetches, and lupins. 


The bean was also used as a synonym of pulse, an edible vegetable, though pulse is not related to beans, as it is a crop grown for its dry grain. The term beans exclude plants that are used for oil extractions, (such as soy-beans and peanuts) as well as plants that are used for sowing (such as clover and alfalfa). Crops such as snap peas and snow peas, and so on, are not considered beans because they are a vegetable crop. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture the word bean should only be used for members of the family Phaseolus, however a strict consensus definition has proven in the past that beans from other families (such as azuki bean, black gram, green gram, and moth bean) were classified in the family Phaseolus and later reclassified.