By Jill E. Duffy
Eat two cups of beans every day for 30 days. That’s the basic challenge, and it’s supposed to make you feel really, really good. Any kind of beans will do, and you can eat them at any time of day. You can eat other food, as you normally would, and it’s fine if you start out with less than two cups and build up your tolerance. This is BeanTok, a bean-focused wellness challenge on TikTok.
BeanTokers often choose to eat all their beans at breakfast to 1) get it out of the way and 2) reap the benefits of all that fiber early, because it helps them feel full longer. BeanTok, as far as I can tell, is an almost exclusively female phenomenon. Women rave about the effects of beans and how they help mitigate perimenopause and menopause symptoms. I’ve been following more than 30 bean journeys, and the most common benefit I’ve heard is an increase in energy. Other claimed perks are less anxiety, decreased inflammation, and improved ability to focus – but I’ve also seen testimonials about glowing skin, improved sleep, better periods, fewer cravings, and even reduced neck pain. These self-reported results are difficult to measure. On the flip side, the worst complaint I’ve seen involves bloating (predictable).
Legumes are nutritious and delicious, full of fiber and protein, shelf-stable, and inexpensive. The more outlandish claims about their benefits come off as comical, unless you view them in the larger context of health and wellness misinformation online. So some women are mega-dosing on beans. Is there any harm there?
BeanTok’s Roots
Most newly converted bean eaters seem primarily interested in increasing their fiber intake. That’s all. Legumes are high in soluble fiber, which, according to Harvard Health, “slows digestion and makes you feel full after eating.” It helps you poop, too. Getting adequate fiber supports the immune system through the gut microbiome and protects against inflammation. A high-fiber diet lowers LDL (bad) cholesterol and, in studies, “is linked with lower incidences of cardiovascular disease, cancer, and diabetes.”
Most Americans don’t get nearly enough of the recommended 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories. If you eat 2,000 calories a day, that’s 28 grams of fiber. BeanTok likes to round up to 30 grams as the typical daily goal. At this point, I have to mention the obvious: Despite their newfound enthusiasm, BeanTok didn’t “invent” eating beans. Many people have a traditional diet that’s rich in legumes, typically paired with rice, corn, or bread because that makes beans a complete protein source.
How much is 30 grams? Every bean has a different nutritional profile, but using cooked black beans as an example, one cup contains about 15 grams of fiber. Eat two cups per day, and you’re at 30 grams without even trying.
“You’re Doing It Wrong”
A smaller number of bean devotees believe legumes have healing powers beyond the scientifically proven benefits of soluble fiber, like removing unnamed, mysterious “toxins” from healthy bodies with perfectly functioning livers and gallbladders. These crusaders have a message for the rest of the BeanTok: “You’re doing it wrong,” because “actually” if you want to get the “optimal” benefits of beans, you must follow additional steps.
Are you rinsing your canned beans? Are you isolating your bean intake from fats by at least 90 minutes? Are you eating them in small amounts throughout the day, drinking a gallon of warm water, quitting sugar, and giving up caffeine? If not, you’re not getting the full bean experience. Or so they say.
Among these believers, one name comes up again and again: Karen Hurd.
The Bean Queen Has Entered the Chat
Some years ago, Hurd invented the bean protocol, a set of instructions about what to eat, what not to eat, as well as when and how. The backstory, as she told it to me, is that her 18-month-old child was accidentally poisoned with an insecticide in December 1989. Doctors didn’t offer much hope, and the prognosis seemed fatal. Hurd went to a nearby medical library, began researching toxins and the function of the liver, and theorized that feeding her daughter a very high amount of soluble fiber might help draw out the poison. By March of 1990, her toddler had improved substantially, and she’s still alive today. (It’s impossible to know what role soluble fiber had in the child’s recovery; running a controlled human experiment on poisoned children to test this would obviously be unethical.)
You can listen to the full story in Hurd’s own words on this podcast, starting at the 20:00 mark. It’s very similar to the version she told me.
Word spread about a woman who had saved her child’s life when doctors couldn’t, and people began reaching out for personalized health advice, private speaking engagements, and even asking Hurd to teach. She needed more than a BA in Spanish to do this kind of work, so she studied nutrition and got advanced degrees in biochemistry and public health.
From all this, the bean protocol was born.
Today, Hurd sells 18 online health courses, most of which cost $275, though none are called The Bean Protocol. Instead, their titles target specific ailments, for example, Alleviating Autoimmune and Inflammatory Disorders ($275) or The Ten Brothers: Heal Crohn’s Disease, UC, & more ($335). You can add on a 30-minute private consultation for $90.
If you search for a book or web page called The Bean Protocol, you won’t find one, not written by Karen Hurd anyway. Others have summarized it, reported on, put it in their own words. I believe the protocol is outlined somewhere in Hurd’s 2007 self-published book And They Said It Wasn’t Possible: True Stories Of People Who Were Healed From The Impossible. A Hurd-following BeanToker has read excerpts from it and attempted to summarize the science, which is admittedly complex and essentially explains how bile works.
Criticisms of the Bean Protocol
In 2021, Abby Langer, a dietician who’s prominent on social media, published a criticism of the bean protocol on her website. She wrote, “To the layperson, this sort of thing gets confusing when the person giving the claims uses science-y language and a kernel of truth. It gets even more compelling when, like Karen Hurd, they use an emotional or personal story to build those claims up.” I reached out to Langer for comment, but she didn’t get back to me by my deadline.
Langer’s critique applies to other health and wellness advice, not just bean eating. “Telling people that they can become ‘toxic’ if they don’t go on X diet or plan is a very obvious scare tactic. I can assure you that if you’re ‘toxic,’ you’ll be in the ICU,” she wrote. “Fostering distrust in our bodies — it’s part of the marketing.”
To Hurd’s credit, she said that the people she helps are typically at their wit’s end. They’ve been diagnosed with a problem and haven’t had success with treatments, or they sought medical care and could not be diagnosed. Our understanding of how gut health impacts mental or physical health is also still in its infancy, though there are promising signals. As this Vox piece points out, “Researchers have not only found a connection between the gut microbiome and mental health, but also connections between deficiencies in certain micronutrients, includingmagnesium or choline, and conditions like anxiety and depression.” Turns out that beans are a good source of magnesium and choline – though you can also get those nutrients from foods like dark green leafy vegetables and eggs.
What About Perimenopause and Menopause Symptoms?
Sue-Ellen Anderson-Haynes, MS, RDN, CDCES, is the founder of 360Girls&Women, B.E.A.T. Gestational Diabetes and a spokesperson for the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. I wanted to know what she, as a registered dietician who specializes in women’s health, thought about increasing bean consumption to combat peri/menopause symptoms.
Fiber feeds good gut bacteria, she says, which produce short-chain fatty acids and essentially help quell inflammation. Then she went deep into science about xenoestrogens, phytoestrogen, endocrine disruption…I was having a hard time following it. But when it comes to fiber and the phytoestrogen from beans, “you can get those from other sources of foods, too.” Fruits and vegetables contain fiber and have other nutritional benefits that beans don’t, like vitamin C. The point? “Having a rainbow or diverse amount of foods from each food group is really important.”
“Another harm with too much fiber…is it can bind to other nutrients. They call them anti-nutrients,” Anderson-Hyanes added, essentially leeching away things your body needs. Soaking beans, legumes, and certain whole grains, like quinoa, minimizes or negates the anti-nutrient effect.
I asked Karen Hurd specifically about countering peri/menopause symptoms, and she gave a detailed explanation of what happens to the ovaries and the adrenal gland during this phase of life. But from a nutritional perspective, she stresses the importance of protein.
“So you’re saying that the way to keep adrenal glands as healthy and active as they are supposed to be is with a protein-rich diet?” I clarified.
“I will say a protein-adequate diet,” she said. “People think ‘protein-rich’ and they think, ‘Oh, I have to do a ketotic diet,'” she said. “No, no, no! Adequate! All we’re talking about is, for a woman, two to three ounces of protein at breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
But, she added, you still need to eat your beans.
2026: The Year of FiberMaxxing
The bean frenzy I’ve been witnessing online dovetails with another wellness trend: fibermaxxing. Even big food is in on it. Per PepisCo’s CEO, “fiber will be the next protein.” Eating tons of beans may or may not melt away your driving anxiety, for example, but it will send you to the bathroom … a lot. Considering that adult women are, by and large, underconsuming fiber, it stands to reason that freight-training a ton of beans through their digestive systems would feel revelatory.
I reached out to Rancho Gordo, a small provider of heirloom beans based in Napa, California, curious whether BeanTok was big enough to affect sales. Julia Newberry, general manager at the company, told me that 2020 was an off-the-charts year for beans. Since then, sales have come down a bit but are still higher than before the pandemic. Beans, she said, are a staple in everyone’s pantries these days.I assumed Newberry might share her thoughts about bean health claims or online fads, but she said that stuff isn’t in the brand identity. What she sees among Rancho Gordo buyers is a love for beans that’s translated to a passionate and connected bean-loving community.
The company sells a bean subscription, which started as a joke, but now reportedly has a waitlist 22,000-people long. Every quarter, members receive a box of dried legumes, but they also get access to a private Facebook group where they cheer each other’s cooking efforts, share photos — one even made a well-produced music parody video about her love of beans. The vibe is uplifting. At the end of the day, it seems like beans drive human connection, no matter the reason for eating them.