Main Page | See live article | Alphabetical index Kidney beans are a variety of bean with a dark red skin. They must be boiled for at least ten minutes before they are edible. The boiling degrades a toxic compound - a lectin - found in the bean which would otherwise cause severe gastric upset. Kidney beans are usually canned with water and salt, sometimes also sugar, but the water turns translucent yellow and gloppy by the time a consumer opens the can. This article is from Wikipedia. All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License.