Bean Toast is the New Avocado Toast

You heard it here first 🫘 ✨

Roasted Carrot & Hot Honey Bean Spread with Olive Oil and Lemon Thyme

Is bean toast the new avocado toast? Most certainly not (yet), but I strongly believe it should be. Here’s why:

Over the last 15 years, avocado toast has become the image of the Millennials. It was said we were wasting our money on $20 fancy toasts and lattes and not saving up to buy homes. This idea was later debunked, as the state of the economy and rising prices were more to blame than the fancy toast, but it was still symbolic.

So, how did avocado toast become so popular in the first place? One of my favorite things about food is tracing trends, and the boom of Americans eating avocados began with campaigns from the California Avocado Commission in the 1980s.

Introducing a new food to the American market can take decades. The first step is often to find the perfect variety for taste, transportation, and uniformity, which came together with the Hass avocado, discovered by plant breeder Robert Hass in the 1920s.

Then, you have to invest major marketing dollars and influence the consumer. The California Avocado Board began marketing campaigns to show not only how delicious and versatile avocados can be but also their nutritional benefits.

Consumption slowly increased, including a big push once NAFTA went into effect in 1994, lifting the import bans on Mexican avocados. As for the toast, Chef Bill Granger in Australia is credited with inventing avocado toast for his cafe. In 2011, Jessica Koslow brought avocado toast to LA, later opening LA’s iconic breakfast spot, Sqirl.

This story reminds us that change is slow, and is often fueled by lots of money and power.

So, I’m here to start the movement of replacing some of our avocado consumption with beans. Blending beans makes a creamy and nutritious spread that works perfectly on toast, think hummus! But many different flavors and a little thicker.

Why this change?

1. Avocados are great, but they predominantly don’t grow in the US, consume unsustainable amounts of water, and have become linked to organized crime

2. I stand by the UN’s Beans is How mission to double bean consumption by 2028 - beans for breakfast is a solid way to accomplish this.

3. Nutrition-wise, bean spread has almost triple the amount of protein than avocados, more fiber, and WAY less fat. To be fair, it’s monounsaturated fat, but see how I can spin that messaging? Beans have more carbs, and both have essential micronutrients.

4. Waiting for avocados to ripen can be a pain, and I have gotten many a dud one in my time. Often, larger-scale production means worse tasting.

5. Beans are far more versatile than avocados. You can go in one million directions with beans on toast.

We already grow plenty of beans in the US, so it’s time to find new ways to incorporate them into the American diet. First step, we need a new name for “bean spread,” and then we need millions of dollars to fund the messaging campaign. Who’s ready to invest?!

In the meantime, I made a roasted carrot & hot honey bean spread that was damn good.

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Roasted Carrot & Hot Honey Bean Spread 🥕

Ingredients

• Carrots

• Can of cannellini beans

• Lemon

• Tahini

• Hot honey or honey and red pepper flakes

• Olive Oil

Instructions

• Roast about 5 medium carrots (or more, and save them for later). Place in the oven at 375 for about 45 minutes, tossing halfway through.

• Once roasted and briefly cooled, blend 1 can of rinsed and drained white beans, squeeze the juice from 1 lemon, drizzle olive oil, add 2 Tbsp tahini, add the roasted carrots, squeeze about 1 Tbsp of honey or hot honey, add a splash of water, and blend until smooth.

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❗ Pay Attention ❗

• The Arrest of Farmworkers at Berkshire Dairy Strikes Fear Across the Industry: Migrants are the backbone of the state's $5.4 billion dairy industry. Many are now afraid to leave their homes for fear of deportation.

• Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and the Confounding Politics of Junk Food: The nutrition researcher Marion Nestle on the health impact of America’s diet, and whether the Trump Administration will take on the food industry.

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✨ Gems of the Week ✨

• I got to meet Fany Gerson, the founder of FanFan Doughnuts, this week. Her donuts are works of art, using incredible flavors and natural coloring. I listened to her episode on This is TASTE to learn more about her story and recommend it to you.

• The Amen Effect - a book recommendation from a wise person

• I made a fun cake for a friend’s birthday, and I am very proud of it! She is vegan and requested an alternative flour, so I made a Buckwheat Cake with Cherry Chia Jam and Whipped Coconut Cream.

• I loved this essay by Kara Haupt in

  Home Food
  , “What would happen if you just stopped buying meat?” We need more people talking about this. Eating LESS meat doesn’t have to be so rigid.

• At the same event where I met Fany, I also got to chat with

  paris starn
  who has a Substack, Playing with Food. Her food looks like art. Check out her Instagram for instant awe and inspiration.

• Last week at Farm to People, we had two conversations on the path from Restaurant to Retail with Hannah Cheng of Mimi Cheng’s, the famous dumpling shop, now frozen dumpling brand, and Nialls Fallon and Leah Campbell, the team behind Brooklyn restaurants like Hart’s and Cervos, and how they built their tinned fish brand Minnow. Both products are excellent and can be ordered from Farm to People. The podcast episodes should air in the next couple of months, so stay tuned for that!