The benefits of beans: How Britain went potty for pulses

When it comes to Britons and beans, baked beans reign supreme. Never mind their American roots, Brits eat the most baked beans globally, getting through more than two million cans of the saucy, tomatoey beans every day.

But apart from baked beans on toast, pulses - which includes beans and lentils - aren’t really a big part of the British diet. It marks a departure from our European neighbours, particularly those living in the Mediterranean, where beans are an important part of cuisines there.

However, the past two years have seen a shift in Britons’ attitudes towards beans and they are having a moment. Last year, Waitrose reported a 122% rise in year-on-year sales of canned beans, with demand for chickpeas and butter beans seeing the biggest jump.

Data from market research company Kantar also suggests that demand for pulses is increasing, with nearly one billion units of prepared beans and pulses sold in the UK between 2023 and 2024, according to Food and Drink Technology.

Why is everyone going bonkers over beans?

The appeal of beans usually lies in their affordability rather than their taste. In fact, until recently, beans were associated with either baked beans or being boring and bland.

However, Britons’ growing concerns over the state of our health as a nation is giving beans a new platform. A 2024 survey by ukactive, carried out by Savanta, found that the majority (85%) of Brits want the government to invest more in preventing obesity and health conditions.

This also means that many people are looking for healthy and sustainable ways to change their diet. Food content creators and recipe writers have responded with a plethora of recipes to help people do just that - and beans have bounced on social media.

Commenting on the increase in demand for beans at Waitrose, Lizzie Haywood, innovations manager at the supermarket, said: "Butter beans, black beans and chickpeas are ingredients that are not only trending across menus, but across social media too, with content creators encouraging people to cook them at home and include more healthy, plant-led protein into their cooking."

She also attributed the bean boom to the premium tinned market, particularly brands like Bold Beans "leading the way with their glass-jarred beans".

Bold Beans is the brainchild of Amelia Christie-Miller, who founded the company in 2021. While she has been banging the drum about beans ever since, she says the popularity of beans has really soared in the last two years thanks to "mega trends around fibre and gut health in the public consciousness".

"Everybody is talking about fibre being the new protein, and there is also a lot of concern around the impact of ultra-processed foods on health," she tells Yahoo UK.

"When I was first coming up with a business plan for Bold Beans, I was looking into health and blue zone diets, which are the diets where people live the longest and healthiest. A common denominator of those regions is that they eat lots of beans, so I very much did know that they are a wellness food - but it’s been amazing seeing other people come round to them as well."

It’s not just retailers and corporations that are sitting up and taking notice of beans. Non-profit charities campaigning for healthier and more sustainable food systems are also shouting about the goodness of beans.

On World Pulses Day (10 February), The Food Foundation highlighted the benefits of beans for both our health and the planet. On a bigger scale, Beans is How is campaigning to double the global consumption of beans by 2028, amplifying how beans are a simple and affordable solution to the cost of living, health and environmental challenges.

But health isn’t the only good thing about beans. People are discovering just how tasty they can get.

Beans are the ticket to flavourtown

You may not think there is a difference between a canned bean, a jarred bean, or a dried bean - but there is.

Canned beans, while perfectly adequate and beloved for their affordability, are not all that tasty. They can have tough skins and a floury texture even after being cooked, which has perhaps lent to their reputation for being a bit bleh.

This is down to how fresh the beans are when they are harvested, and how they’re cooked in order to be safe for canning. "What’s happened is that manufacturers find bean stock from five years ago that are not good quality but very cheap, and there’s been no thought into making them taste good. They’re cooked until they can be sold, rather than until they taste great and have a beautiful texture," Christie-Miller explains.

"We always cook from the most recent harvest, so they’re plump and juicy, and really fresh. Then they’re cooked for a long time, which costs us more but makes them better."

If you want to get even nerdier about beans, look no further than Monika Linton, founder of Brindisa. She has been credited with making Britain fall in love with Spanish food, as she began importing and selling goods and ingredients from Spain in 1988.

Beans are a major staple in Spanish cooking, and she began shipping what she calls "elite beans" to the UK in 1990. At the time, her clientele were chefs who knew how to cook the dried beans and get the best out of them.

She tells Yahoo UK it’s taken 30 years to get to a point where domestic cooks were interested in buying these same beans. "People have been buying pulses from health food shops for a long time, but it’s always been seen as either for vegetarians or for health reasons rather than gastronomic reasons," she said.

"But there’s a growing awareness now that there are so many varieties of beans, so many seasons. They are a bit like vintages of wines, it can be as complex as you want it to be. I think Brits are discovering that beans can be a surprising source of great flavour."

To Linton, it’s the dried bean that reigns supreme. Even then, not all dried beans are made equal.

"You need to buy dried beans that are from the last harvest so they haven’t dried up so much that they’re like bullets and won’t ever soften.

"If you buy beans from smaller growers, they tend to be grown in plots of land that are more suitable and they rotate the soil to keep it healthier. And you want to buy from growers who audit the calibre of the beans and their size, so they cook consistently. One of our suppliers is a family who checks every single bean manually.

"All of that means that if you want a good bean, you need to pay a bit more."

Investing in good beans means bringing more flavour to your plate. "If they’re good ones, you don’t need to overdress them with lots of other flavours. I always think that less is more when it comes to beans, because the more you spend on the beans, the less you need to spend on things that go in them."

The science behind the goodness of beans

Ultimately, how you like your beans doesn't matter as long as you eat more of them, says Dr Emily Leeming. The scientist and author of Genius Gut: The Life-Changing Science of Eating for Your Second Brain, tells Yahoo UK that beans are one of her favourite things to talk about because of how good they are for health.

Packed with fibre

To understand why beans are so important, we must first understand the UK’s relationship with fibre. "In the UK, on average, we’re missing about 35% of the fibre we’re recommended to have," Leeming says. "On average, we eat about 20g of fibre and the recommended amount is 30g. That’s quite a bit deficit.

"If we add more fibre to our diets, that’s probably one of the best and simplest things we can do to make a difference to our health. We know that by reaching the recommended amount of fibre, there are multiple benefits to be reaped - and beans are a big part of that."

When we think of fibre, it’s lettuce, fruits, or other salad items that come to mind. But Leeming says that these don’t contain all that much fibre, but beans, wholegrains, nuts and seeds can contain up to three or four times more fibre than most fruits and vegetables.

"Even a third of a can of beans adds 5g of fibre," she says. "That’s half of the deficit you’re missing already made up for in just a third of a can of beans. Lettuce, for example, has 1.8g of fibre per 100g, whereas chickpeas have 88g of fibre per 100g. That’s a big difference."

'Good' gut bacteria

Pulses also contain resistant starch. Together with fibre, these two components feed our gut microbes and create short-chain fatty acids, which are important for lowering excess inflammation and supporting the health of different organs and systems within the body.

An easy, vegan and cheap way to bulk out meals

Beans also add bulk to your meals, which is why you feel nice and full after eating them, and you’re more likely to feel fuller for longer. Leeming also explains that this acts as an "obstacle course" for sugar, slowing its release and absorption into the bloodstream and managing blood sugar levels.

Help absorb bad cholesterol

Fibre from beans also help absorb bad cholesterol in the gut to be carried away and excreted. On top of that, eating more fibre lowers the risk of heart disease - making the old refrain "beans, beans, good for your heart!" ring even truer - type 2 diabetes, colorectal cancer, and even depression.

"It just shows how impactful fibre can be," Leeming says. "It’s helping us immediately feel better, feeling more energy, feeling fuller for longer. These wider-ranging benefits are helping support our long-term health."

So the next time you write your grocery list, be sure to add beans to it. Whether they're tinned, jarred or dried, eating more beans is a great way to have a healthier - and tastier - diet.

Read more about nutrition:

• The new bread that experts say is good for your health and the planet (Yahoo Life UK, 7-min read)

• The 2 Healthy Diet Changes That Could Be Leaving You Bloated (HuffPost, 2-min read)

• People with healthy diets in midlife ‘more likely to achieve healthy ageing’ (PA Media, 3-min read)