It's bean great.

Let's design the perfect food.

It has to be low-low-fat and have almost no sodium. It should be loaded with vitamins and minerals and have gobs of complex carbohydrates. It should taste great. And...and...oh yeah. It's gotta be dirt cheap.

Know what we just designed? Beans.

A little gas aside, beans are as good a food as you're ever going to find.

BEAN BULK

You want fiber?

Even the lowest-fiber bean on our chart (adzuki) puts most other foods to shame.

And a cup of pinto or black beans clocks in at 16 grams of fiber. That's half your daily goal. You'd have to eat eight slices of whole wheat bread, four cups of corn, five bananas, or 4-1/2 baked potatoes to get that much.

(The FDA says that a typical serving of beans is a half-cup. But that's if you think of them as a side dish. A main dish built around beans means at least a cup.)

The only foods that rival beans are a few bran cereals like Kellogg's All Bran with Extra Fiber and General Mills Fiber One. And their fiber is mostly insoluble. That's fine, since insoluble fiber alleviates constipation and may help cut the risk of colon cancer.

But the fiber in beans is a combination of insoluble and soluble (which lowers cholesterol and--diabetics take note--helps regulate blood sugar).

MADE-TO-ORDER PROTEIN

Too much protein may not be healthy, but we all need some. And when you get your protein from meat or dairy products, it often comes with a hefty price tag--fat, saturated fat, and cholesterol.

To get 14 grams of protein (about a quarter of your daily quota) from cheddar cheese, you'd have to eat two ounces. That would slam you with 18 grams (four teaspoons) of fat, 12 of them saturated.

You can also get 14 grams of protein by eating two ounces of broiled ground beef (which is half a typical serving). Its cost? Ten grams of fat, 4 of them saturated... if it's lean.

And a cup of cooked kidney beans? Sixteen grams of protein...and one gram of fat (just about one gram of fat (just about none of it saturated).

'Nuf said.

VITAMINS & MINERALS

A cup of just about any cooked bean will give you at least half the U.S. Recommended Daily Allowance (USRDA) for folic acid, a B-vitamin that many people--particularly women who are or could become pregnant--need more of.

You'll also get about a quarter of the USRDA for magnesium and copper, and 15 percent of your daily potassium and copper, and 15 percent of your daily potassium and zinc needs.

And you'll get 20 to 30 percent of the iron you need to absorb in a day. That's if you eat your beans with vitamin-C-rich foods (like tomatoes or citrus fruit or juice), with red meat, or, to a lesser extent, with poultry or seafood.

(It's a myth that you have to eat meat to get iron. While the iron in meat is better absorbed, vegetarians don't appear to have a problem with anemia.)

HALF-HEARTED

What many people who eat beans do have a problem with is gas.

You can blame it on a missing enzyme: alpha-galactosidase. Humans don't have any, which is unfortunate, because alpha-galactosidase breaks down raffinose sugars. And it's the undigested raffinose and other sugars from the beans we eat that cause gas.

The bacteria in our bowels feast on the sugars, then give off hydrogen and carbon dioxide. The gas expands... and heads for the nearest exit.

Can you lower the odds of getting gas from beans? Theories abound:

* Eat more beans. That's right. Beans are more of a problem for people who eat them infrequently. If you're new to beans, start with a small amount and increase gradually.

* Don't eat beans together with cabbage, Brussels sprouts, or whatever foods give you gas.

* Try lentils, black-eyed peas, lima beans, chickpeas, and white beans, which some people think are less gassy.

* Never cook beans in the water they've soaked in. It's loaded with the pesky sugars.

* Cook your beans thoroughly. That makes their starches more digestible.

* Mix 1/8 teaspoon or so of baking soda into the soaking water. It helps leach out raffinose sugars.

* Drain and rinse canned beans. That will get rid of some of the raffinose sugars (as well as almost half of the unwanted sodium).

* Try Beano. It's liquid alphagalactosidase, the enzyme. that digests the sugars that lead to gas. According to its manufacturer, a few drops on the first bite of an offending food is all you need.

If all else fails, hang around with other bean-eaters.

BEANING UP

So now that you want to get more beans into your diet, how do you go about it?

* Order them when you eat out. Here are a few suggestions to get you started: Italian (Pasta e Fagioli, Minestrone Soup); Middle Eastern (Hummus, Falafel); Mexican (Bean Burritos, Rice & Beans); Indian (Dal, Aloo Chole); American (Baked Beans, Split Pea Soup, Vegetarian Chili with Beans).

* Cook them. Most varieties cook up in 1 to 1-1/2 hours (20 to 25 minutes if you pressure cook them). You'll find instructions in almost any cookbook.

* Buy them canned. Keep a dozen or so cans of chickpeas, kidney beans, pinto beans, and black beans in the cupboard. That way, they're handy when you're looking for something to toss onto a salad or into a soup, stew, sauce, or casserole. You can also blend them into dips, wrap them inside tortillas, or eat them as a snack (rinsed) right out of the can.

Canned beans can be salty, though, and "No Salt Added" brands are still rare. So drain and rinse your canned whatevers under cold water for at least a minute. That should cut the sodium by about 40 percent (for a cup of most beans, that means from 800 milligrams down to about 500 mg).