We have gentrified the bean.
Once a humble resident of the back of the cupboard, the bean now comes in a beautiful glass jar, costs considerably more than it used to and regularly appears on TikTok swimming in something garlicky.
Butter beans are cool. Chickpeas are crispy. Lentils are having a moment.
And after years of turning plants into burgers, sausages and nuggets, we appear to have made an extraordinary nutritional discovery:
Beans are actually quite good.
The great bean rebrand
Of course, beans never actually went anywhere.
They've been cheap, filling and nutritionally useful for a very long time. They just weren't particularly likely to appear in a beautifully lit ceramic bowl on your For You Page.
That's changed.
UK sales of beans, pulses, tofu and tempeh rose 7.3% in the first half of 2026, according to NielsenIQ data analysed by Madre Brava. Dried beans, peas and lentils were up 16.7%, while canned and jarred beans rose 6.4%. At the same time, traditional plant-based meat alternatives fell 4.3%.
Butter beans are having an especially good year. Recent UK reporting found sales of canned and jarred butter beans had risen 30.3%, helped along by social media, viral recipes and our newfound enthusiasm for putting beans in things other than chilli.
Perhaps we've reached the stage where a bean is finally allowed to admit it's a bean.
Nutritionally, they've got rather good timing
The bean comeback makes sense when you look at what we're currently obsessed with.
Protein? Beans have it.
Fibre? Also beans.
Gut health? That fibre comes in rather handy.
Eating more plants? You can probably see where this is going.
And fibre in particular is something most of us could do with more of.
UK guidance recommends adults aim for 30g of fibre a day, yet the latest National Diet and Nutrition Survey found adults aged 19-64 were averaging just 16.4g, with only 4% meeting the recommendation.
Suddenly the humble bean starts looking rather impressive.
What does the science say?
There are good reasons for beans and other pulses to feature regularly in our diets, although (as ever) they're not magic.
A 2023 systematic review looking at 47 studies found favourable effects of legumes on measures including LDL cholesterol and fasting blood glucose, although the researchers rated the overall evidence relating to cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes as limited (Thorisdottir et al., 2023).
A more recent systematic review of 40 human intervention studies found pulses generally produced lower post-meal blood glucose responses than comparison foods such as white rice and wheat-based foods (Schumacher et al., 2025).
And a 2026 meta-analysis of 38 randomised trials found eating whole pulses produced modest reductions in LDL cholesterol and several other blood-lipid markers (Chiavaroli et al., 2026).
So no, a bowl of butter beans isn't going to transform your health overnight.
But nutritionally speaking, we've certainly had worse things go viral.
Have we had enough of pretending plants are meat?
Perhaps that's the more interesting part of the bean boom.
For years, much of the innovation around plant-based eating was about imitation: burgers that bleed, sausages that sizzle and nuggets determined to convince us they weren't actually made from plants.
Now the sales data suggest shoppers are showing renewed interest in simpler plant proteins such as beans, lentils, tofu and tempeh.
And there is something refreshingly uncomplicated about that.
Beans are affordable. They're versatile. They provide fibre and protein. They count towards eating a greater variety of plants.
They also come in a tin.
No shaker required.
Sometimes nutrition really can be quite boring
Wellness has a habit of convincing us that eating well requires discovering something new.
A new superfood. A new powder. A new ingredient you've never heard of that costs £28 and is apparently essential to human survival.
But sometimes the useful stuff has been in the cupboard all along.
The harder bit is often working out how to turn “eat more fibre, protein and plants” into meals you actually want to eat every day.
That's where a bit of personalised advice can be more useful than another TikTok food trend. Alyve's nutritionists offer 1:1 support and tailored meal plans built around your diet, goals and lifestyle - beans entirely optional.
Explore ALYVE's nutrition support.
So yes, beans are cool now.
Buy the expensive jar if it brings you joy. Make the viral butter bean recipe. Bang some chickpeas into something.
Just spare a thought for the tin of kidney beans that's been waiting patiently at the back of the cupboard since 2007.
It knew its time would come.
References
Thorisdottir, B. et al. (2023) ‘Legume consumption in adults and risk of cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes: a systematic review and meta-analysis’, Advances in Nutrition, 14(5), pp. 1000–1012.
Schumacher, F. et al. (2025) ‘Acute effects of non-oil-seed pulses on parameters of cardiometabolic health: a systematic review of human intervention studies’, Advances in Nutrition.
Chiavaroli, L. et al. (2026) ‘Effect of different types of whole dietary pulses on established therapeutic lipid targets for cardiovascular risk reduction: an updated systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials’.
