Are Beans and Eggs Good for You?

I was interested in whether beans and eggs are a good combination because I found whilst they are both really high protein they also taste great together.  Well, that’s MY opinion at least.

Anyway, I did some research into this topic and found some very interesting details.

Many people wonder how healthy it is to eat eggs every day, and you might also be wondering if eggs and beans are good to eat for weight loss. So, below I’ll explain all of that and more.

Is it healthy to eat beans and eggs together?

Beans and eggs are healthy to eat together, and also have a range of benefits.

There are:

1. It lowers how much cholesterol you get from the eggs
2. It provides you with a good amount of protein
3. It gives you a lot of sustained energy

Eggs have one of the highest cholesterol levels of any food with nearly 200 mg.

Eating more cholesterol has been linked in studies to increased risk of heart disease. When you eat beans with eggs it lowers has been shown to lower how much cholesterol your body absorbs.

This means you lower your risk of heart disease compared to eating eggs on their own, or with just toast for example.

This is one of the main advantages of eating beans with eggs.

Although, it has also been found that if you eat other vegetables with eggs it also reduces how much cholesterol you absorb the eggs.

For example, if you combine them with tomatoes, spinach, and onion.

Beans though are typically higher in protein.

Eggs are high in protein and on average contain about 10 to 13 grams of protein for every 3.5 oz (100 grams) of eggs, according to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).

Which is the equivalent of about 2 eggs.

Different beans contain different amounts of protein, and my research showed that Soybeans contain the most protein of the most popular beans.

I’ve put together a table below to show how much protein is in each type of bean:

* Butter beans are a type of kidney bean and are also called lima beans, sieva beans, double beans, and Madagascar beans.

I used to not know the difference between Butter beans and Cannellini beans because they look very similar.

I discussed their differences in this Cannellini Beans vs Butter Beans (Are They Different?) article.

As you can see from the table, soybeans have about double the protein of the other kinds of beans you’ll generally find in a store.

A general rule of thumb is that you need to eat about 2 grams of protein per 1 kg of body weight a day to maintain your existing muscle mass.

Many people who want to put on muscle will increase how much protein they eat to above their existing body weight, so that when they workout they will put on more muscle.

For example, if you only need to eat 140 grams of protein to keep your existing bodyweight, if you want to put on more muscle you would increase your protein intake to say 180 grams of a protein a day.

Most foods such as fruits and vegetables don’t contain that much protein. And eating a lot of meat can be expensive, and some people prefer to eat a plant-based diet.

So, getting a lot of your protein from beans is a really good option.

Combining beans with eggs gives you a meal that is very high in protein.

So, you don’t have to supplement your diet with as many protein shakes, or consume a lot of meat.

If you have cereal, toast with jam, or just fruit for breakfast most of the time you will feel hungry around morning tea time.

These kinds of foods are fast burning and the sugar releases energy really quickly in your system.

Because beans and eggs contain a lot of protein, they give you sustained energy for a long time.

Especially if you combine them with other nutrient-dense foods like avocado.

For example, if you eat them for breakfast, you won’t typically need to eat anything until lunchtime.

And you can drink herbal tea or water until then.

This is one of the advantages of eating beans and eggs, in that you won’t have to eat as often, which can be quite time-consuming if you have a busy day.

However, you don’t generally want to eat eggs for breakfast every day.

However, eating eggs everyday is generally not recommended, and there are some drawbacks to eating beans with eggs depending on your health goals.

Harvard Medical School recommends you eat less than 300 mg of cholesterol a day to maintain a healthy body.

Which is the equivalent of 1.5 eggs a day. Almost all of the cholesterol is contained in the yolk.

So, if you are eating only the egg whites then you can pretty much eat as many as you want.

Interestingly, the egg whites contain most of the protein, according to Healthline.com.

However, the yolk has most of the nutrients. So, it’s a bit of a… ‘chicken and egg’ problem, excuse the run.

Therefore, if you want to consume eggs for the protein and the long lasting energy, but don’t want to increase your cholesterol to above recommended levels, you’re best to eat only the egg whites, and limit the egg yolks to about one a day.

Eating beans every day is safe. But, as you may be aware you should generally eat a varied diet as much as possible.

That way you diversify the nutrients you give your body and don’t give it too much of one nutrient, or not enough of another.

But, I recently wrote an article where I researched canned kidney beans.

In my research, I found that canned foods contain bisphenol A (BPA).

Which leads into the food from the surrounding can.

Various research has shown that you want to only eat food from a can once a day.

Otherwise, you will be consuming too much BPA, which gives you an increased risk of heart disease, and other health problems.

If you want to read the full article that goes into more detail and also covers the number of beans you should eat on a particular day.

 Are Canned Kidney Beans Good for You?

Eating beans with eggs is better for you than eating eggs on their own, or with toast.

When you eat beans or other vegetables with eggs, it lowers how much cholesterol your body absorbs.

Egg whites contain almost all of the protein found in an egg, whereas the egg yolk contains the vast majority of cholesterol.

So, eating a maximum of one or two egg yolks a day is recommended, but you can pretty much eat as many egg whites as you like.

In either case, combining them with beans and other vegetables is a lot better for you.

Enjoy!