I love good beans: drizzled with vinaigrette in a salad, sprinkled over pasta, served on a plate with rice and corn. The bean is a powerful little food, especially since it has shapeshifting abilities. Many people can understand that these legumes are cheap and healthy, but they still do not command widespread adoration or even respect.

However, over the decades, Atlantic writers have repeatedly turned to the revolutionary potential of the bean. This humble bean, small, unglamorous and high in protein, has been a source of inspiration for those seeking to rethink the food system, fight climate change and bring better flavors into American homes. In a 1975 article nobly titled “A bean to feed the world? historian Richard Rhodes has argued for a central place for soy in the American diet. “We continue to sing of the amber waves of cereals, not the dusty pods of beans,” he laments in the first sentence.

Noting that soybeans were, at the time, the No. 1 cash crop in the country, Rhodes argues that Americans should consume them as a source of protein in themselves, rather than feeding them to farm animals who are then become a meal. “The conversion of soybeans to human food is worth studying,” he writes. (Soybeans, a cousin of the lentil and black bean, contain about 30 grams of protein per cup.) Alas, soybeans today remain primarily the source of livestock, with the exception of soybeans. the small percentage used to prepare popular foods such as tofu.

In 2017, James Hamblin made the urgent decision climate arguments in favor of replacing beef with legumes in Americans’ diets, given that cows are among the world’s largest agricultural sources of greenhouse gases and occupy vast tracts of arable land. Hamblin explained that by swapping beans for beef, the United States could “achieve between 46 and 74 percent of the reductions needed” to meet 2020 greenhouse gas emissions targets. goals established by President Barack Obama in 2009. (Americans didn’t reject beef altogether in favor of beans, but, largely because the pandemic slowed travel and economic activity, we eventually achieve these climate goals.)

Part of the problem with beans is that they’re not a very appealing food. In a 1992 articleFood writer Corby Kummer acknowledges the “tasteless” nature of beans before telling readers some ways to prepare flavorful, easy-to-digest bean dishes. But for horticultural writer Richardson Wright, the bean’s humility is what makes it heroic. During the Second World War, he wrote that “the coincidence of Saturday night and baked beans was of divine origin, and with the ardor of the newly converted, I insisted that we practice.” In times of loss, a pot of beans – which he calls “starchy catechumens,” likening them to starchy bodies ready for baptism – can mean everything. The quasi-religious tone of his Proustian meditation on beans is moving; Yet his food choice was driven by desperation and limited rations.

The image of beans as a fallback when you don’t have, or can’t afford, something better proved difficult to shake. Even as vegetarian diets are on the rise and Americans recognize the environmental impact of beef, meat consumption remains an intractable part of American life. For all the trend of bean broth And Rancho Gordo Subscriptions In recent years, many Americans still haven’t made legumes a central part of their diet. A estimate found that in 2019, the average American ate about 55 pounds of chicken per year, compared to about 2.5 pounds of cooked black beans (US bean consumption is low compared to many other countries). There are nevertheless reasons to hope: the Americans have adopted hummuswhich is made from chickpeas. Chic New York restaurants serve bean dishes. And a climate campaign with links at the United Nations is push to double global bean consumption by 2028. While the bean may not be the flashiest ingredient, it is evergreen and could even shape a better world in its image.