Slow Cookers and Red Kidney Bean Poisoning

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Red kidney beans contain high levels of a toxin that occurs naturally in beans, Phytohaemagglutinin (also known as Kidney Bean Lectin.) If raw or undercooked red kidney beans are eaten…well, bad things happen.

With normal cooking, this isn’t a problem. The toxin is destroyed after ten minutes of boiling (cooking at 212*F or 100*C.), and most stovetop recipes easily take care of the toxin with their hours of simmering at that temperature. Raw, soaked beans are bad; eating four of them is enough to cause symptoms. Now, here’s the problem with slow cookers: undercooked beans (cooked at 80*C, roughly 170*F) increase the toxicity fivefold. And, most slow cookers have their “low” setting at about 180*F. If your slow cooker runs a little cooler than most… England tracks this more carefully than we do here in the US. They had seven outbreaks of kidney bean poisoning between 1976 and 1979, caused by raw, soaked kidney beans or kidney beans cooked in a slow cooker.

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