> Beans are protein-rich, sustainable, and delicious. Why doesn’t the US eat more of them?
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.
This is actually the biggest problem. It's not that beans don't have protein, it's the amount of it you have to eat to meet your daily requirements. 3 ounces of chicken has the same protein as almost 11 ounces of beans.
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.
Beans and rice is a subsistence food for millions of people from South Asia to South America, so it has to be working somewhat well. Chatgpt says 3-4 cups of cooked beans is enough to satisfy DRI's.
> 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.
It’s disturbing to read “chatGPT says”. An unpredictable, machine algorithm is not an acceptable reference.
> 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).
> The right metric is protein per calorie. Beans are very high up on that list, just below meat and cheese.
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.
you're right, i should have written the definitive and complete 10,000 word treatise on nutrition here. to make sure nothing is missed. in the meantime, i recommend the Sports Nutrition Guidebook by Nancy Clark.
Protein requirements are vastly overestimated in America compared to plenty of countries where there are long living people eating a lot of carbs and less protein
I think humans can do fine on carbs, but I think you’d need to provide a citation stating our expected requirements are “vastly overestimated”. Furthermore, we do all kinds of problematic things to our grains in America.
Unfortunately dietary science in the US is largely funded by private companies and leans towards their interests. Furthermore, there are very few international studies comparing different diets. Also, i see very few comments on HN with citations bc the comments are for opinionated discourse of facts
That doesn’t mean it’s unreasonable to ask for citations when one could be supplied. E.g. a reference to daily recommended nutrition from other government agencies would have been very useful to this opinionated discussion.
It's nearly impossible to choke down enough protein to get fat on that macronutrient. I mean I'm sure someone has done it but that's just not a practical concern. The issue with gaining adipose tissue is typically caused by consuming excess carbohydrates and (to a lesser degree) fats that come along with the protein.
Steak is the most overrated food ever. Give me soup dumplings, tacos, neapolitan pizza, ANYTHING over a bland unseasoned slab of meat that cost $50-100 (or way more in Vegas). The romance around steak is entirely cultural and not objective.
You just generalised roughly about a billion people's diets.
> 86% of vegetarians go back to eating meat because they get sick
About half of those billion people were never not-vegetarian in the first place, i.e. Indians. They are generational vegetarians, having stuck to that diet for well over 3500 years. So either you pulled that factoid out of some unsavoury orifice, or you are badly misinformed.
> Nearly all vegetarians I've seen are nearly never obese but nearly always look weak, sick and tired
Also, source?
Americans are amongst the most 'carnivorous'[1], but there is a massive obesity, heart disease, and high cholesterol problem in the US.
Majority of Indians are non-vegetarians. Indians eat way less meat than other countries, sure. Part of this is due to cultural, religious, and cost reasons, but the fact that most Indians are non-vegetarians is un-disputed.
> ... in the US, where the average person eats only around 7.5 pounds of beans per year.
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.
Last I heard, the subset of beans that have been somewhat developed for human consumption are nonetheless still full of antinutrients like glutamates and lectins that function as a defence mechanism and which mean that the nutrients that they do contain (and that survive processing) have a very low bioavailability relative to components like starches. I for one prefer the use of regenerative pastureland as opposed to intensively farmed monocrops that rely on artificial pesticides, oil-derived fertilizer and air freight transport (!). Advocacy articles like this tend to a paint a skewed picture of land-usage-per-unit-of-nutrition and nutrition-per-unit-of-food with graphs like these, as well as other assumptions that they're implying about pastureland being suitable for agriculture (it often isn't).
Regenerative pasture land is nice, but it's not productive enough to satisfy our hunger for meat. Most meat calories are produced by feeding animals intensively farmed monocrops.
Again, I'm not sure that's so clear once you factor in bioavailability, and even if you were to use nitrate fertilizers and to cover the hillsides in legume monocrops to then feed then to ruminants, that would still end up being objectively better for human nutrition, as a use of natural resources. They're a state-of-the-art technology for intelligently transforming low-value biomatter into high-value animal fat and protein on an industrial scale; we aren't anywhere near that level of sophistication, and we dismiss it at our peril and to the detriment of human health.
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.
Surprised to not find "refrig", "shelf", or "storage" occur once in TFA.
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.
The main issue with beans from a “prepping” standpoint is the amount of energy (fuel) required to rehydrate and cook very old, very dry beans. Lentils are way better in this regard—they keep just as long but cook much faster.
The protein in beans is not nearly as bioavailable as the protein in meat.
Further, it is not complete - it doesn't contain all the amino acids we need.
Not to mention that meat contains over fifteen identified micronutrients that aren't found in any plants.
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.
Bit of a straw man. It is as easy (and common) to eat (refined) crap as a vegetarian as it is to do so as a meat-eater.
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.
I for one find bread incredibly addictive and freshly home-baked bread doubly-so, so it's not the additives. It's not just the overeating, when I eat it, it puts me into a blissful haze and wanting to sleep. I am near certain it switches on my opiate receptors because it's absolutely a drug experience I have to abstain from because I can't moderate.
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.
People don't need that much protein as it is, something like 40 grams/day is sufficient for an adult male who isn't trying to gain muscle.
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.
Maintaining strength and muscle mass is a pillar of aging well and enjoying the latter years of life.
If you care about your long term health you should absolutely spend time regularly strengthening your muscles, and ensure that your diet supports that.
That is largely misinformation. While 40 g/day may be sufficient to avoid acute nutritional deficiency, it is hardly optimal for long-term health and athletic performance.
That is hardly a random doctor's blog. It is an interview with Dr. Don Layman, one of the top experts on protein metabolism, and includes links to multiple relevant research papers. You should educate yourself before spreading misinformation.
Chronometer is junk. It is not a valid source of scientific information.
Cronometer isn't junk. They rely on on USDA recs and have their own experts. You could stand to educate yourself a little as well before spreading misinfo.
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]
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.
This is simply not true. I grew up in a family of multiple generations of lifelong bean eaters and the gas never goes away no matter how you cook them.
You absolutely do not get gas after a steak dinner like you do after a bowl of pinto beans for dinner. Nobody I've ever met does. You're being hilariously unrealistic.
Get a pressure cooker, it makes beans far more practical.
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.
What about the pressure cooker makes them more practical? Reduced cooking time? Can you skip the rehydration process for dried beans? For me at least I think a lot of what limits me looking to beans is to go from "no prep" to "finished dish" for beans involves hours of soaking, then a long cooking process.
> Yes, and if you have the time/patience to let the cooker naturally cool, all the flavors stay in the pot instead of evaporating.
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.
Try cooking only one thing at the time. With pressure, the cooker is going to push water deep into what you put into it, yes, but the result is that everything mixes and will taste the same especially if you mix vegetables and meat.
Generally, vegetables together are "safer" taste-wise.
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.
Look up almost any Indian recipe with lentils/legumes/pulses.
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.
Mujaddara is middle eastern lentils and rice. The rice makes it a complete protein. I modified this recipe https://feelgoodfoodie.net/recipe/mujadara/ and cook it all in a rice cooker at the same time. Delicious.
Feijoada. 2 cups black beans, four cups broth, 4 oz fatty pork scraps (bacon, shoulder, whatever), 8 oz sausage, whatever other meat scraps are laying around, 2 onions chopped, 2 bell peppers chopped, 6 cloves garlic, tsp oregano, tsp black pepper. High pressure 2 hours. Unlid, correct seasoning, eat with rice.
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 tadka (pigeon pea, mung bean, and chickpea stew)
- 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)
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.
I live in Texas and my wife is from Northern Mexico. This is a classic, extremely easy, 5 minute refried beans recipe:
- 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.
From Texas, refried beans both (1) get a terrible reputation for being unhealthy because of a mistranslation (2) are in my top tier favorites. A good refried beans dish is absolutely delicious.
Beans and rice, it's inexpensive and delicious. If you look at food all around the world there is almost always some kind of beans and rice dish, typically made with spices and vegetables unique to the area.
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.
YouTube videos. Language may become an issue for you. If it does, please feel free to ask, I'll reply at leisure. The second video uses sprouts, but it works as well with any pre-boiled beans.
Does tofu count? Lots of great recipes. We frequently make Mapo tofu at home (which can be made vegan if you want, and pretty easy to cook - just buy a jar of Doubanjiang(?) at your nearest Chinese grocery).
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.
I don't know why the US doesn't consume more beans, but I understand the UK doesn't. They only know the canned bean that is horrible. A friend once asked me why would you cook beans. I can't explain, you have to try.
Canned beans must be cooked properly, without that they are bland. I usually buy cans of beans without any sauce, species or tomato, then use them as an ingredient in cooking with meat, vegetables and proper seasoning. Also they are great in salads.
I mean plants definitely are more intensive than a lot of farming, but I'm not sure space is the only consideration? Eg we farm cattle in Australia on land that's not particularly usable for any cropping.
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.