To get involved, follow these steps:
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Create a new menu item which includes beans (or promote an existing bean-filled dish) and serve it during March 2024
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Email the name/picture of the dish and include details on where you plan to serve to the Full of Beans Team: shw-gfpp@glasgow.ac.uk
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Publish on social media using hashtags #GlasgowFullofBeans #beansonthemenu and tag the organizers:
Instagram – @goodfoodforglasgow @glasgowcommunityfoodnetwork @beanishow
Twitter/X – @glasgowfpp @gcfnetwork @beanishow
Facebook – @glasgowfpp and @glasgowcfn
Linkedin – Glasgow Food Policy Partnership, Glasgow Community Food Network, SDG2 Advocacy Hub
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Join the Bean Cooking Training on the 12th of March to increase your bean knowledge, culinary skills and to get some bean-spiration to your kitchen! Details will be circulated very soon, and spaces for this course will be limited. To express your interest, email: shw-gfpp@glasgow.ac.uk
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Monitor how many bean-dishes you serve in March as part of the campaign and share case studies with the team.
Glasgow City Council schools are also on board with the challenge and are already working with Soil Association Scotland’s ‘Food for Life Served Here’ team to develop new bean-inspired dishes for school menus; the new menu items will be revealed later in the year.
Beans are good for nutrition!
The Scottish diet is too high in processed and red meat and too low in both vegetables and fibre, with adults consuming 17.2g, which is well below the recommended target of 30g. Furthermore, the cost-of-living crisis has exacerbated inequalities and food poverty making it even more difficult for many people to consume a nutritious diet. Beans used to be a staple food in the UK, but today people consume fewer pulses than the world average. Beans can provide one of five daily portions of vegetables (recommendation by the NHS Eatwell Guide) along with a good amount of fibre and protein and are a cost effective way towards consuming a healthy diet.
Approximately 30% of carbon emissions are derived from the food system, and animal products contribute considerably more to global warming than those foods of plant origin.
Pulses sequester carbon in the soil and growing them does not require a lot of water, resulting in a much lower contribution to climate change. Beans and pulses also have an ability to fix nitrogen, which enriches the soil and can help other plants flourish. Not all pulses are suitable for commercial growing in the British climate, but the most commonly grown crops are fava beans, marrowfat peas and large blue peas. Broad beans, haricot, runner bean, borlotti, cannellini, lentils and chickpeas can also be grown as small-scale crops and some commercial growers are already experimenting with crop varieties eg. UK grown lentils.
Beans provide a plethora of both health and environmental benefits in line with the aims of many local strategies such as the Glasgow City Food Plan including:
- Improved access to healthy affordable food and reduced food insecurity linked to low cost of beans
- Increased understanding of the food system with regards to nutrition and sustainability linked to increased education through the campaign
- More opportunities for communities to enjoy cooking and growing together linked to opportunities for community participation
- A thriving local food economy which promotes principles of sustainability linked to promotion of participating businesses
- Increased availability and use of seasonal, locally grown and produced food in Glasgow linked to organisations/community projects recruited to grow beans
- Improved health and wellbeing linked to increased consumption of healthy beans
- More food produced in ways that are good for the environment linked to increased bean growing
- Reduced greenhouse gas emissions arising from our food system linked to lower consumption of animal products
About the Full of Beans Campaign
Throughout 2024, the Full of Beans Campaign, co-organized with the Food and Climate Action project, Glasgow Community Food Network (GCFN), will organize a series of activities to inspire people to eat and grow more beans and pulses in Glasgow. They will provide education about the multiple benefits of eating beans, increased menu offerings in various settings, and give people confidence to grow and cook their own. The campaign will also encourage community growers and market gardens to carry out mini crop-trials to establish crop varieties suitable for growing in the Glasgow climate, particularly growing beans for drying as this is currently less common.
To learn more:
- Watch the launch of the Full of Beans Campaign, also featuring Beans is How and BeanMeals
- Visit the Full of Beans Campaign website
- Learn more about the Bean Menu Challenge
Email the Glasgow Full of Beans team: shw-gfpp@glasgow.ac.uk or Beans is How: info@sdg2advocacyhub.org
