Baked beans

Why everyone’s talking about...

WHILE smart types have been experimenting with home-baked sourdough bread and fancy salads – for many, lockdown meanz more baked beans. How unadventurous!

Maybe, but official retail figures show that baked beans have been the most popular food sold in corner shops. Even in normal times, 1.5million cans of Heinz Beanz are bought daily in the UK. Heinz’s factory near Wigan makes a billion cans a year, with haricot bean deliveries arriving in two-ton bags containing 9.5million individual beans. Every single one is checked by laser to ensure it’s the right colour. They are not actually baked, but steamed, about 465 of them to a 415g can. (Although last year a Tory councillor in Bristol called Steve Smith found just one bean swimming in lots of juice in the can he got online from Tesco.)

Where did they come from?

Baked beans have their roots in native American cooking, and were originally made with maple sugar and bear fat. HJ Heinz, whose first business sold horseradish, began canning them in Pennsylvania in 1895. Six years later they were on sale in Fortnum & Mason as a luxury at 9d a can – £2.15 in today’s money.

But now t hey’re a staple…

Addictive even. A guy called Gary Watkinson reportedly eats beans on toast for every meal. (He’d be interested that pizza delivery service Papa John’s has launched a baked beans version). Celebrity fans include Holly Willoughby, who this month shared a kitchen trick: washing the sauce off baked beans works out 33p a can cheaper than buying posher haricots or cannellini. There’s even a baked bean museum. It’s in a Port Talbot council flat and is run by Barry Kirk, who has legally changed his name to Captain Beany.

But they can’t be good for you?

They’re a good source of protein, fibre, iron and Vitamin C. They have a low glycaemic index (the rating for foods containing carbohydrates), which means you feel fuller for longer. While sugar (almost 20g in a can) and salt content is high, they count as one of your five a day. During wartime rationing, the Government classed tinned beans as an essential food. Healthy-eating champion Jamie Oliver has served beans on toast at one of his restaurants. Though it was later revealed Heinz paid him £15,000 and it was a publicity stunt.

Any side-effects?

Yes, their oligosaccharide polymers get fermented by the micro-organism Methanobrevibacter smithii in the large intestine.

You what?

As the playground saying goes: ‘Beans, beans, the musical fruit. The more you eat, the more you toot.’