Where every kind of statement comes from
Beans touch on food safety and nutrition, so Pulse and Pod keeps a tight rule on where its facts may come from. This page sorts them by kind. Revised 2026-10-26.
The source map
| Kind of statement | Taken from | How it is handled |
|---|---|---|
| The kidney bean soak-and-boil rule, danger zone, leftovers, reheating, canned goods | FDA and the USDA Food Safety and Inspection Service | The federal figure is the rule, even where another source differs. |
| Sorting, soaking, simmering, storing dry and frozen beans; which beans carry the most toxin | Nebraska-Lincoln, Maine and Utah State extension services | A difference from a federal figure is pointed out on the page. |
| Nutrient values | USDA FoodData Central | Per 100 g of cooked food, as the database lists it, with the entry named. |
| Major food allergens | FDA | Listed, never turned into advice for a person. |
| What counts as a pulse | UN Food and Agriculture Organization | Definitions only. |
| Legumes as a protein food | Dietary Guidelines for Americans, 2025-2030 | General statements only; no numbers taken from it. |
Recipe blogs, packers, brands, shops and trade associations are not on the map, and nothing on the site rests on them. Celsius values are worked out from the Fahrenheit ones and rounded to one decimal.
Sentences that are the site's own
Every fact in a guide traces to a document named in that guide's sources box. The glue between them is not sourced: explanations of why a step matters, the labelled worked examples (which feature no real cook, household or business), sums such as scaling a batch or converting temperatures, and the broad sketches on the world cuisines page. Plenty of sentences are therefore unsourced, and the site does not pretend otherwise. Sources are restated, never pasted in.
Lines the site will not cross
- No amount of any food or nutrient that a person ought to eat.
- No promise that beans improve health, weight or any condition.
- No diet plans and no word on medicines or medical conditions.
- No dish credited to a single country and no version called the authentic one.
Rule of thumb
A safety figure with no named authority behind it does not get printed.
What the automated check covered
research/sources.json lists all 12 cited documents together with the figures and phrases each one is relied on for. On 2026-10-26, npm run sources requested each page and searched its text for those items: 56 in all, every one found. The University of Maine page timed out on the first pass and was requested twice more on its own; before the last of those, two of its search phrases were corrected to match the wording on the page. The Dietary Guidelines arrive as a long PDF. The site read it but the script did not search it, which is why the guides lean on it only for general points. These checks are where each guide's "last reviewed against sources" date comes from.
What nobody has checked
A text search proves a figure is present in a source, not that a guide uses it correctly. Every guide is machine-written: an AI model produced the text from the cited documents, and no human editor, food-safety specialist or registered dietitian has reviewed them. The illustrations were hand-coded as vector shapes, not produced by an image generator. See the about page for the rest of the story.
No strings attached
No grower, packer, trade body, retailer or agency has any hand in the site. Cookware and ingredients are named by type, never by brand. The first edition names its sources without hyperlinks, so each page can be checked before it sends readers elsewhere. Any later link will be there for the reader's benefit, and a paid one would be marked as paid.
If a guide falls behind its source
Safety advice and food tables get revised, and this site will not notice when they do. The twelve documents were looked at on 2026-10-26 and on no later day, and no repeat check is planned. So before you rely on a cooking time, a storage rule or a nutrient figure, open the agency's or extension service's own page as it stands today; if it says something different from a guide here, follow the agency.
Nobody can send in a report either, so a wrong number may stay on a page unseen. Any correction that is made goes on the guide in question with the date beside it.