Lima beans, when shelled, should be plump with tender skins, green to greenish white. The skin should puncture when it is tested. Hard, tough skins mean that the bean is overmature, and these beans usually lack flavor. Lima beans are often called “butter” beans.
To shorten their cooking time and make them easier to digest, lima beans should be presoaked (presoaking has been found to reduce the raffinose-type oligosaccharides, sugars associated with causing flatulence.) Do not add any seasonings that are salty or acidic until after the beans have been cooked since adding them earlier will make the beans tough and greatly increase the cooking time.
Lima beans are beneficial to the muscular system. Dry beans have a high protein content of almost 18 percent, but fresh beans are only 4 percent protein. Lima beans are excellent as a puree in soft diets for stomach disorders. They make a tasty baked dish, such as bean loaf. One pound of lima beans contains as many nutrients as two pounds of meat.