Lupini/Lupine For Human Consumption

No hits in the forum on Lupini or lupine for human food.
Pros: All the benefits of lupine- flowers, butterflies, Nitrogen fixing, perennial, PLUS you can eat the beans, which contain all the essential aminoacids, so it is one of the few vegan perfect proteins.

Cons: Wild lupin beans contain toxic alkaloids and must soaked or brined before consumption. Cultivated "sweet" lupines can be pollinated by wild and produce high alkaloid beans.

I have eaten them at a restaurant and quite enjoyed them. Would it be reasonable to try and grow these to fill a significant portion of my family's protein needs? Has anyone grown these for food on a small scale?

The wikipedia article for those interested

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lupin_bean

Lupine like well drained soil.
I live in a area with alot of silt and clay so Lupines not an option.
If you do not have Lupines and have good draining soil than why not grow it as a percentage of your grains
This assumes that your area does not have tons of wild Lupines.

Looks like if you have a isolation distance of 100 meters you should be ok. See link below.

http://www.ogtr.gov.au/internet/ogtr/publishing.nsf/content/42D3AAD51452D5ECCA2574550015E69F/$File/biologylupin2013-2.pdf


Where are you buying your sweet Lupines?

My soil is a mix of sand and clay, wild lupine does grow in the area but not in huge quantities, most are probably garden escapes. Thanks for that Australian gov link. I am super happy to read that lupine is used as a heavy part of fish diet, for salmon and trout. Also I wouldn't rule out lupine based on your soil type, they are pretty tolerant once established and in that packet you posted it lists L. luteus as adapted to transient waterlogging.

http://www.australiangardener.com.au/viewitem.php?productid=309

This site sells international.

The three varieties commonly grown in Australia as "sweet" are augustifolius, luteus, and alba. All 3 varieties can be purchased as seed in the US but I know that alba and luteus are generally considered as bitter and need to be treated before human consumption. Kinda confused by all the cultivars within the same species. I would most likely debitter any seeds I would eat just to be safe, but I would like to start out with a low alkaloid seed also.

Does anyone have any more info on cultivars?

here's the only "sweet" lupin I've been able to find so far

http://www.covercropsolutions.com/products/cool-season-legumes.php

still looking for someone selling it in Canada

according to this study lupins have significantly more alkaloids in lower pH soils and vice versa

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ija/2012/269878/

Vitabor seems to be a good cultivar

Hi Matt.

Here in Portugal we eat a lot of Lupinus Albus, normally as a snack mix with peanuts and beer. I sowed them last Autumn as a green manure in my farm and took some to eat and they are a great protein food.
Sure they are unfit to eat raw but the preparation it's not that hard or time consuming.
Lupinus Luteus are normally given to animals but i never heard about them for human consumption.

Take care

In Spain we eat then too, as a snack. I don't think they are particularly delicious though - but will plant some anyways bc of their other properties.

What is your typical process for preparing them? I have only had them pickled, with some chili spices.

Normally i leave them in water for the night, at lunch time i cook them for 30-60 min and after that i just change water every 4h for 3-4 days and keep adding a lot of salt. I guess you can pretty much prepare them as you wish, salt, spices....etc

That is a lot of water changing, I hope that I can find a source for sweet lupins.

Matt Darkstar wrote:

Does anyone have any more info on cultivars?

I would like to ask this same question. One question is whether the cultivars have bred out the alkaloids. Hopefully not through hybridization, I mean I like the idea of a consistent strain. The flower of this plant looks amazing with the seeds so convenient to harvest being bundled together requiring only a handy pair of scissors. Other interests of mine are nectar quality for honey bees. I tell you what though, Youtube is a great source of information.

Did you see these? http://www.rareseeds.com/store/flowers/lupine/edible/

Hi! I found this blog while looking for perrenial sweet lupine, it seems that they do exist, however I dont know if it is possible to get seeds from them

http://lupin-fin.blogspot.ca/2007/01/perennial-forms-of-washington-lupin-for.html

I know this is an old post, but I wanted to leave a warning on lupin for anyone with a peanut allergy. Lupin can cause a cross-reaction in people who are allergic to peanuts, so if you grow them, please share that warning with anyone you share lupin with for consumption. I had hoped to plant some lupin in my own yard, but my son is very allergic to peanuts, so I had to cross them off my list. Here is a warning out of Canada:

https://www.canada.ca/en/health-canada/services/food-nutrition/food-labelling/allergen-labelling/information-canadians-peanut-allergy-concerning-lupin.html

One pack left here: https://www.agroforestry.co.uk/product/lupinus-albus-dieta/

I grow "sweet" lupini, which seems to mean that they are slightly less nasty bitter than the wild strains. And the amount of soaking required for edibility is outrageous. So I put them in the category of famine food.

'Dieta' is available in the UK

http://www.soya-uk.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/WHITE-LUPINS-A5-LEAFLET.pdf

"But now we have found a new sweet lupin- the Dieta Lupin was bred in the UK specially for human use and is completely non-bitter, even without any special preparation."

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/lupins.html

However it's an Annual.

If the sweet lupin still need a lot of soaking to leach out the bitter taste, then surely it is just as well to use the perennial lupins as a starting point? Does anyone have success with so called sweet lupins or are they all as nasty as Joseph says?

Heads up to anyone considering planting lupine in/near pastures - Some types of lupine are toxic to livestock in large amounts. They can be quite hardy and spread well, ideal if you want them, bad if you're trying to control them!

My heart is Pounding and I'm noticeably dizzy

Tree Spacer wrote:My heart is Pounding and I'm noticeably dizzy

Call for medical attention in case this is an emergency, I would say.

I assume given you've posted in a Lupin thread that you think this is from ingesting Lupins.