Bean Cuisine: The Potential of Citizen Science to Help Motivate Changes in Pulse Knowledge and Consumption

Abstract

Pulses, or the dry, edible seeds of non-oilseed legumes (e.g., chickpeas, cowpeas, dry beans, dry peas, and lentils), are uniquely positioned to simultaneously benefit human and environmental well-being, all while being affordable and important to diverse cultural food traditions around the world. Despite the benefits they can provide, pulses are dramatically under-consumed. One key barrier preventing higher intake among consumers is a lack of familiarity with how to prepare and regularly incorporate pulses into meals. To address this barrier and actualize findings from our laboratory, we created the Bean Cuisine, a 2-week cuisine (i.e., meal plan) with 56 pulse-centric recipes corresponding to 14 unique breakfast, lunch, snack, and dinner ideas. Each meal category was largely interchangeable, i.e., the order of the breakfast recipes is not important, and one could be swapped for another if a different order were preferrable to a consumer. Fifty-six citizen scientists were recruited to provide feedback on the Bean Cuisine. Free response feedback related to project participation was very positive, and common themes included changes in pulse consumption and cooking behaviors, increased awareness of pulse variety and versatility, and positive perceptions of citizen science. Overall, participation in the Bean Cuisine citizen science project helped create pulse advocates, empowering participants to advance the well-being of their communities through pulses.

A Translational Approach to Increase Pulse Intake and Promote Public Health through Developing an Extension Bean Toolkit

“…Statistical analysis to assess test-retest reliability of the Food Habits Survey questions is detailed in the above Food Habits Survey section. When analyzing the final data set for the Food Habits Survey and the Extension class, the statistical analysis was conducted similarly to that of our recent Bean Cuisine citizen science research [19]. Briefly, descriptive statistics were used for categorical variables like demographics.…”

“…There was higher participation by White, educated females: 82.8% of participates selected White as their ethnicity, nearly 33% had a master's degree, and about 80% were female. A relative lack of socioeconomic diversity is a challenge faced in other outreach work [19]. Although this could limit generalizability to a larger audience [20,50], it may be representative of the population likely to utilize the resulting Extension Bean Toolkit resources and take the Extension class.…”

“…Despite numerous benefits, there are several primary barriers to higher pulse intake that are well-established in the literature, including long cooking times and concerns over flatulence [11,13,18]. Another key barrier is unfamiliarity, or a lack of understanding of how to prepare pulses and regularly include them in a variety of meals [11,19]. For example, Doma and colleagues found that consumers tend to prefer to eat beans at certain times and in particular dishes [13].…”

“…Our research team recently conducted a citizen science project to inspire people with the culinary versatility of pulses and received participant feedback on the Bean Cuisine (i.e., a 2-week cuisine that incorporated beans and other pulses into 14 unique breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners for a total of 56 recipes) [19]. Participants significantly increased their knowledge about the health benefits of pulses, pulse versatility, and how to prepare dry pulses.…”

“…Participants significantly increased their knowledge about the health benefits of pulses, pulse versatility, and how to prepare dry pulses. They also reported feedback such as, "I'm more aware of ways to incorporate beans into every meal, and I'm paying more attention and trying to eat them more" [19] (p. 12). Citizen science can be a powerful approach to engage the public [20], but it is also important to reach a broad audience that may not have the ability to participate in a citizen science project.…”