I want to start including beans into my diet. However, i do not have the time to cook beans from scratch.
So i want to eat canned beans. Butter beans and black beans are my favorite.
But i'm having a problem portioning them. The can says 130g is the serving size. But i dont know if that includes the liquid or not.
Depending on how much liquid i poor into my container when i weigh the beans, i can easily double or half the "portion" of actual beans. So i'm at a loss as to how much beans are really one portion....
can anyone help me out? the brand was Grace or Goya, i forget...
(BTW i know canned foods have high sodium)
Hmm...interesting question. I don't think I have a direct answer, but maybe a suggestion. I would just use calorie count's generic listing for cooked beans. (like this one for black beans).
I don't have time to cook beans from scratch either. Or rather, it's not the highest thing on my priority list. Although, the flavor of fresh cooked beans is really different. That said, I use canned beans a lot.
However - I learned 2 things early on about canned beans.
1 - Check the ingredients lists!!! Some have a ton of stuff that shouldn't be in beans. I usually buy an organic kind, because they generally have less 'stuff' - just beans, water, sea salt, but there are cheaper brands that also don't have the extras.
2 - Rinse the beans. That will help w/ the sodium content. And also makes them taste fresher.
Check the labels... you can buy no salt/low salt canned beans.
Fixing beans from scratch is no problem if you have a crock pot 
I generally put together 15 to 17 different types of beans and add 2 quarts of water with home grown tomatoes that I had frozen the summer before from my garden and a little organic sea salt with minerals all in a Crock Pot turn on Low the night before and the next evening when I am ready for dinner my meal is ready ( Bean Soup) . If I use meat of any kind I usually use venison which is very lean but has a sweet taste as far as meat goes. Hope this help for all of you who work and don't have time but love homemade bean soup for dinner I then go off the generic list that calorie counter gives on 7 bean soup and either add or subtract from there or I add the soup to my program and then go for different items such a meats or tomatoes from the list and figure out how many or how much in the way of mearsurements. Hope this is of some help 
A tip for freezing a big batch of FRESH/DRIED BEANS that I saw somewhere online recently, and used with success for a huge ziplock bag of soy/black beans I made recently is........
after soaking overnight, cooking and then cooling the beans to room temperature, spread them out on a cookie sheet, or some pan that fits in your freezer, non-stick is best or foil underneath, and freeze them for 10-15 minutes or longer. Then put them in a big container or freezer bag. Then they do not freeze into a huge clump of beans, and then you have beans for quite awhile and can portion them out really easily. 
Canned beans have sugar, and all kinds of stuff in them sometimes. Making a big batch is not too bothersome every once in a while - and beans are not really a tempting snack food to have in the freezer.
