The mung bean or species Vigna radiate (L.) Wilczek belongs to the pea family and is a main source of bean sprouts. Besides the sprout form, the mung bean seed can also be eaten. While the mung bean is well known for its edible uses, the mung bean hull also serves many purposes.
Pillows
The people of China advocate sleeping on pillows stuffed with the hulls of the mug bean. The hulls separate and spread out within the pillowcase, offering support wherever the weight of the head rests. The Chinese also believe that resting on a mung bean hull pillow will lessen the symptoms of hypertension, including dizziness.
Fattening Cattle
Due to the rising costs of feeding farm animals, such as cattle, studies have been conducted to find cattle feed and combinations of feed that can give proper nutrition to the animals and cut feed costs at the same time. One survey, conducted in Vietnam in the Duong Lieu and Cat Que Communes, utilized four different cattle farmers and their cows. The first group of farmers fed their cattle a mixture of cassava residue silage, mung bean bran and mung bean hull. The second set of farmers fed their cattle the same amount of cassava residue silage, but larger concentrations of mung bean bran and mung bean hull. At the end of the trial, which lasted a total of 90 days, the animals that received more of the mung bean bran and mung bean hull had greatly benefited from the added protein and showed relative growth over the cattle receiving less protein. Due to the low costs of mung bean products, the farmers were able to produce healthier, larger cattle, which resulted in a larger profit when selling the cattle.
Antioxidant
According to an article in the Journal of the American Oil Chemists’ Society, studies have been conducted as to the antioxidative activity of methanol extracts of mung bean hulls or MEMBH. The study compared MEMBH with other antioxidants and showed that the antioxidative activity was stronger in MEMBH than the other antioxidants tested. The study also concluded that the antioxidant properties of the mung bean hull might be due to the extract’s capabilities to search out and reduce levels of diphenyl and picrylhydrazyl. For this reason, the study concluded that extracts from the mung bean hull could serve as a possible natural antioxidant.
History
The mung bean, produced in China and Asia for thousands of years, made its way to America around 1835. Early growers referred to this plant as the Chickasaw pea plant. The vast majority of mung beans grown in the United States are produced in the state of Oklahoma, with over 100,000 acres of land utilized for mug bean production.