Beans are protein-rich and sustainable. Why doesn’t the US eat more of them?
vox.com
vox.com
Because they don’t actually have that much protein. Cooked black beans are about 9% protein and 25% carbohydrates, whereas chicken breast is about 30% protein and has virtually no carbohydrates.
A cup of beans has about 15g protein. And usually you need 1g/kg of body weight per day. A normal sized adult would then need to eat anywhere from 6-8 cups of beans per day, which if you haven't had beans, is a very tough thing to do. As compared to that, 1-1.5 chicken breast could provide the same amount of protein, which is much easier to consume.
> And usually you need 1g/kg of body weight per day.
This is too much unless you're bulking. Not everyone is a tech gym bro.
> This is too much unless you're bulking. Not everyone is a tech gym bro.
Body builders actually eat up to 2.5/kg. The bare minimum for normal people is 0.65/kg, however that triggers intensive autophagy and comes at a severe cost in energy levels and performance in general (although some people might tolerate it better).
“Chatgpt says” is the 2020 version of “I don't beloeve or consult doctors, i get my medical information from the twitter/tiktok”
Maybe if you're a bodybuilder. For almost everyone that's way more than necessary.
Not to mention most people aren't protein-maxing, so even a medium protein food is very good.
It's baffling that you claim that "The right metric is protein per calorie", but you fail to mention the fact that meat has 3x the protein per calorie compared to beans[1]. The fact that beans rank "very high up" is irrelevant.
[1] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/173735/n...
[2] https://fdc.nal.usda.gov/fdc-app.html#/food-details/171534/n...
Plus it’s impossible to stop eating them once you gain momentum.
When people talk about their program for Massive Big Gainz(tm), nobody mentions "beans" for good reason.
Because they don't taste as good as meat, obviously. People get excited about going out for a steak. Nobody gets excited about going out for beans.
I found the problem. A proper steak should be properly seasoned.
People are generally selfish and will generally choose to do things that benefit them over things that benefit other people.
Wow, that's surprisingly low. Maybe people haven't had good beans? I was going through at least a pound per week of dry beans from Rancho Gordo [1] during the pandemic when I was cooking all the time.
I guess most people just eat crappy canned beans? They're really missing out if so.
Besides that, "Our hunger" for any resource will always grow to be arbitrarily large if there are enough of us (and our consumption of them are typically governed by things like market economies, private property and borders), and we're all welcome to develop our own innovative technologies and methods of production that can feed (or house, or entertain, or occupy) an arbitrarily large number of people to the level that we're capable of. So by all means, people should develop new foodstuffs and build multistory subterranean megastructures, and develop new power sources to pursue their own nutritional vision if they're motivated to solve future problems as they see them.
One of the major advantages to beans is they're a healthy protein source you don't even have to refrigerate/keep frozen to store. Sacks of dried beans will last a very long time provided you keep them dry and away from vermin.
I've cooked decade-old dried black beans found in a "kitchen stuff" box after emptying a storage unit and they were perfectly fine.
There's a good reason that meat is tasty and desirable, and beans less so. Meat is simply much more nutritious.
It seems to me that vegetarian thought like this is based out of a self-denial. Perhaps self-denial is a valid strategy when your mind and desires are addled by malnutrition and drug-foods like bread and refined sugar.
A well-balanced vegetarian diet does not leave your mind addled by malnutrition. Refined sugar is not necessary either. The “bread” in the grocery store (actually cake) is bad for you, yes, but what is the harm in freshly baked boules and loaves? Like many things, moderation paves the path to joy and happiness.
Your "moderation is joy" comments highlights that you don't realise some of us are not wired like that. I don't eat sugar because I have zero interest in eating say one donut. It would be a painful tease, an irritant, an actual bad experience. Instead I want to eat 12 donuts. Only that will hit my "donut complete" satisfaction. Given the side-effects of 12 donuts, I accept 0 donuts as the happy compromise.
Thankfully beans/legumes/tubers/meat/fruit don't trigger this junkie behaviour.
This is disputed (see the "criticism" section). And besides, nobody thinks getting all your protein from beans is ideal.
Beans are good, but not a replacement for meat (too many carbs), they should just be part of a varied diet. Meat shouldn't be eaten every day anyway, 2, maybe 3 times a week, and rarely red meat.
I mean, that's if health is a concern at all, which for most it isn't.
If you care about your long term health you should absolutely spend time regularly strengthening your muscles, and ensure that your diet supports that.
Correct.
>Beans are good, but not a replacement for meat (too many carbs)
Beans are not a replacement for meat because they contain little-to-none of meat's micronutrients, in their bioavailable forms.
>rarely red meat.
Why?
>I mean, that's if health is a concern at all, which for most it isn't.
What country are you living in? Literally every other person in America has a chronic illness.
Current health thinking is to limit red meat intake.
> What country are you living in?
The US.
> Literally every other person in America has a chronic illness.
Correct. Which supports my point.
Chronometer is junk. It is not a valid source of scientific information.
The doctor's theories to which you linked are not consensus, and I'm going to stick with what is consensus so far. Consensus is 0.8grams of protein per kilogram of body weight.[0][1]
[0] https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speak... [1] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/how-much-protein-do-you-...
So, sure eat more of them, especially if you're not going to be around others.
As someone who has gone on long stints using beans as a primary protein source, this is simply not true IME. But it does depend on the types of beans and the cooking methods.
AIUI a major component of what determines gassiness is if there's a combination of fiber (especially soluble fiber) and starches/sugars which become locked up in that fiber so they pass through the small colon intact. This is a desirable situation from a health/weight-gain standpoint, since you've avoided absorbing those simple carbs. But it feeds the biome of the large intestine, producing gas.
Legumes tend to have those ingredients... there's no reason to expect it to stop occurring. Ex: 100g pinto beans contains 26.22g carbs of which 9g is dietary fiber, the remaining carbs is stuff your gut can likely use to make gas.
They’re the magical fruit.
A staple for me is to sautee some garlic and chopped onion in chicken fat or olive oil in a pressure cooker, add bay leaves, black pepper, a small pile of cumin and an even larger pile of paprika, and some parsley, with the (salted)water+beans. I'll usually do this with black beans supplemented with ~20% pinto.
Augment it for other bean types... just look up recipes for what herbs/spices goes well with them. Cumin and paprika works with a lot of them, heavier cumin with lentils, heavier paprika with kidney beans. Garbonzo I usually leave out the cumin and paprika altogether, and add rosemary.
Kidney beans you can turn into a sort of poor man's vegan chili just by adding a mountain of paprika, it turns into a sauce with the disintegrating beans. I'll omit the onions, garlic, and bay leaves for that mode, and just add some raw chopped onions to the bowl like you would with chili.
Yes, and if you have the time/patience to let the cooker naturally cool, all the flavors stay in the pot instead of evaporating.
For vegetables in 15mins at high pressure you have cooked even the most fibrous or stubborn down to the core. 30 minutes will blast anything.
Can you expand on this? I have a combo slow/pressure cooker and the few times I've used it I've been disappointed that everything seems to have the same kind of flavours. Your comment is making me think I'm making a huge tiny mistake somewhere.
Generally, vegetables together are "safer" taste-wise.
Yep!
Pick a meat and cook it (dice up sausage links, ground meat/turkey, cooked bacon diced up, boil and shredded chicken breast, etc)
Use oil from meat or olive oil to saute diced veggies (onion, garlic, peppers, mushrooms, corn)
Deglaze with some liquid (beef, chicken, veggie broth) that matches the meat you cooked.
Pick a seasoning or make your own blend (chili, taco, ranch, curry), be sure to taste the broth before adding the seasoning or it might end up crazy salty if you picked a salty meat/liquid
Pick a bean (or a few) and throw it in (red kidney beans, black beans, pinto beans).
Throw the lid on and cook on low for like 30 mins.
Add fixings: hot sauce, bed of rice, Greek yogurt, shredded cheese, tortilla chips, avocado slices, whatever.
If you're using dry beans just get an instant pot. It's worth the money.
For the lazy man: cut up 2 sausage links, fry them up in dutch oven, toss in 2 cans pinto beans, 2 cans Rotel. Throw the lid on and cook slow for 30 minutes. Add salt or seasonings to taste.
Typically I will cook a base of beans and diced tomatoes in a big pot and scoop out what I need through the week to make different things. If you end up with too many leftover just mash them like potatoes and make dips or spread it on tortillas with some scrambled eggs for breakfast.
You can also sprout moong beans by soaking them in water overnight, draining them in the morning, and leaving them covered with a damp cloth in a dark area like the microwave for 24 to 48 hours.
Once sprouted to your desired level, you can just eat them, or make a sprouted moong bean salad with bell pepper, cucumber, tomato, lemon juice, black pepper, and salt.
Real minestrone is a bean-and-cabbage stew, and made properly it's one of the best things. Fry 3 oz bacon in pressure cooker saute. Add 2 ribs celery chopped, 1 carrot chopped, 2 onions chopped, fry until softened. Add 6 cloves garlic, 8 cups broth, a Parmesean rind (about 5x2"), a bay leaf, and 1 cup small white beans (cannellini). High Pressure 2 hours. Meanwhile, fry a sliced zucchini in some olive oil. Reserve. Then fry half a cabbage chopped up in some more olive oil. Add the fried veg to the finished bean soup, then add 1.5 cups V-8 and a big fistful of chopped basil. Stir it up. Correct seasoning with salt and red pepper. Eat it, maybe with some more parmesean. DON'T THROW AWAY THE STEWED CHEESE RIND IT IS DELICIOUS.
You can do some other weird stuff, like make an egg salad-style salad with chickpeas, but that's some weird stuff that I think takes a bit more adventurousness in the mouth.
I coould go on, but those are some good starters. I cook a lot.
- Dal makhani (creamy, buttery black bean stew, similar texture to frijoles refritos)
- Rajma masala (creamy red bean stew)
- Sambar or bisi bēle bhāt, for a more luxurious version (pigeon pea and vegetable stew; the latter is a pretty involved version that is mixed with rice to produce a very rich rice dish)
- Masoor dal pulao
- Adai (legume and rice crepes, similar to but more savoury than dosais)
- Vada (legume and rice fritters)
I ate masoor dal tadka for lunch and dinner for about 200 days in a row now. And not because of poverty, I just love it.
Bean tacos one night, beans and rice the next, kid never says no to more beans and rice for lunch.
We make hummus, started from NYT Cooking but more garlic. Pretty easy to make a big batch and freeze half. Hummus is great in sandwich form.
And I second any Indian recipes with lentils, etc. though I haven't found the ones that the kids consistently like. Dal is easy, but even I don't love it.
- 1 can of pinto beans, already cooked
- 1 heaping tbsp of lard (olive oil can be substituted if you are vegan or vegetarian)
- salt to taste. We almost never salt the beans because we eat them with other fairly heavily salted foods, but it depends on how you cook obviously.
Open can, empty about the top 1/8 of liquid from the can. Again this is to personal preference, but usually using all of the liquid from the can in the saucepan results in too runny beans.
Bring beans to boil in saucepan with the liquid from the can. Once beans are boiling, add lard/oil and simmer on medium low heat until lard has completely melted or oil has dispersed.
Stir and mash beans. We use a potato masher in our house. Very low tech. I’ve even used the back of a spoon in a pinch, but it’s a bit of a pain to do that.
Serve hot. The longer you wait the thicker the beans become. So if they come out a little runny just wait a little while and let them cool, they will thicken. The only thing that can save completely watery beans is more beans, however.
For a weeks worth of lunches:
1. Pot of quinoa
2. 2 bunches of kale, torn up and steamed on top of the quinoa while it finishes cooking.
3. Stir in a can of pinto beans
4. Add a couple of shredded carrots
5. Pour in however much dressing you want. I use some store-bought Green Goddess flavored stuff.
It's very inexpensive, filling and easy to cook in bulk and freeze/reheat throughout the week. Most of my lunches during the week are pinto or black beans I pressure cook once a week plus some rice I cook a few times a week.
[0] https://youtu.be/asY7cq6j0xE [1] https://youtu.be/SNDrDZs3nn4
Or if you feel really lazy, slice tofu into bite-size, and place a slice of kimchi on top of each. A bit like spicy Caprese.
Many of us can't eat them. those with IBS or Fodmap sensitivities will have a very bad time eating most beans.