I wouldn't have said broad beans are any better for you than, say, peas or cabbage... Bulba and I happen to like them and do grow and freeze for use in winter but if you don't like them why bother?

The fields round us are full of them. They grow them for making a kind of flour used in Middle East cookery.
They are edible when young, but to be honest, they are not as nice as long pod types.
No point growing what you would not enjoy eating.

Yep, they're the same - I can't stand them either, I keep trying on and off, thinking maybe as I got older, but no, still can't bear 'em. I can't imagine smothering them in garlic will help much, the flavour of those beans is all pervasive... so long as your diet has a good ratio of vegetables in it, there's no special reason why you'd need to eat fava beans, particularly if you eat other legumes anyway. Soya beans and red kidney beans are impressive on the health benefit front too.

Thanks for the replies, no fava beans for me.

if you pick the young pods like you would sugar snap peas they are much nicer cooked whole like runner beans. The young beans are still very small and its the pods mainly that you're eating. I don't care for the beans themselves but do grow them for the early pods as they are the first veg to be ready apart from overwintered brassicas.

Also if you leave the beans to grow they make excellent soup with a leek, even if you have to buy the leek at that time of year!

Stera all I can say is luck! Unless you likE BB's why grow them?

We can safely assume you haven't watched 'Silence of the lambs' then Hank ! One of Hannibal's favourites ;o)

MG I grow them because they are early, I like eating the early pods and also the soup - no rule says you have to wait for the "dead mens' toenails" to mature!