Is beans protein or carbohydrate? Percentage of carbohydrate and protein in beans…What is the percentage of carbohydrates in beans?
WHAT YOU MUST KNOW ABOUT BEANS AND PROTEIN
Twitter was agog today when a certain guy made a post that said beans/cowpea had carbohydrates more than the protein it was known to be. It was a crazy conversation on AY’s comment section today because I had to do an entire nutrition education exposition.
Many were like they need to go back to elementary school so they can be retaught again. AY himself was shocked and that was why he carried the tweet on his Facebook page.😂😂😂
Some said that we will wake up one day and they will tell us that meat is even a carbohydrate sef. 😂😂😂😂 Some other people were even saying that they will stop eating beans as they used to since it has the most dreaded carbohydrate in it.😂😂😂😂
I will start by saying that we have two kinds of nutrients and they are macronutrients and micronutrients. Macronutrients are three (carbohydrate, protein, and fat) while micronutrients are many ( all vitamins and minerals).
And there is no food has just one nutrient including beans and any other food. They all have two or more nutrients in them. This is one fact you must appreciate for you to understand what i am about to explain to you.
Now somebody will ask, why did my teacher teach me that beans is a proteinous food?
The answer is simple, beans belong to a group of food called Legumes, they are foods that have relatively the highest amount of protein amongst plant sources.
This is exactly why the teachers in primary and secondary schools taught you that and they are not wrong either if you compare it with other plant sources. Maybe this is where they did not explain in detail to you because they were not experts themselves and you were too small to understand that too.
However, when you step up a bit, there is an added professional knowledge to it which is that beans also contain more carbohydrates like other plant foods. This does not question or negate what you already know about beans but it is for you to have a proper perspective of things.
Therefore, beans is considered to be a protein because it belongs to the Legumes food group which has the highest amount of protein amongst other plant sources.
Listen to this, rice even has protein too but the protein in rice is less than that of beans. There is also something you need to know. There is this protein, methionine (amino acid) in rice but not in beans and lysine (amino acid) in beans not in rice.
So plant protein are deficient in one or more essential amino acids on their own but when they come together then they complement each other to become a complete protein.
This is why as professionals, we encourage people to eat more of rice and beans rather than eating each of them separately.
Finally, for those that went online especially on United State Dietetics Association to bring up the nutrient content of beans, their own is correct while the one here is also correct too.
These things are varying in nature due to location and the method of research carried out. As you already know scientific works may vary but generally, beans contain more carbohydrates than protein.
I believe you got value from this and you may have questions too, please ask your questions and share the post for more people to benefit too.
©️Okereke Soromfechi (RDN)
(Nutrition LIFE)
