Are Beans a Protein or Carbohydrate Food?

Vegetarians and vegans lean pretty hard on beans as a source of protein. Even those who sometimes eat meat but also enjoy plant-based meals will often build their meat-free meals around some sort of legume. This is because legumes contain more protein per serving than most other plant foods.

How much protein do beans contain?

But the nutrition profile of legumes is very different from animal protein sources. Eggs, meat, fish, and chicken get anywhere from 50 to 95% of their calories from protein with the rest coming from fat. Legumes, on the other hand, only get about a quarter of their calories from protein. The rest is mostly carbohydrate.  

Legumes only get about a quarter of their calories from protein. The rest is mostly carbohydrate.

Soybeans are a bit of an exception—they're higher in both protein and fat and lower in carbohydrate than other legumes.  

Peanuts (which are technically legumes) are another exception. They're even higher in fat than soybeans and lower in protein than most beans. Perhaps because of this, peanuts are generally categorized as nuts for the purposes of dietary guidelines, despite their botanical classification.

Can you get enough protein from beans?

Although we often think of beans as being a protein food, the truth is that they provide a lot less protein per serving—and per calorie—than animal proteins. 

A 3-ounce serving of cooked chicken breast, for example, provides about 26 grams of protein and about 160 calories The standard serving size for beans is 1/2 cup cooked beans, which provides just 8 grams of protein for around 120 calories.

For every gram of protein in beans, you're also taking in about 3 grams of carbohydrate and a lot more calories.

So, we need to eat a lot more beans to get the same amount of protein as we get from meat. It would take 2 cups of black beans to get the same amount of protein you'd get from 3/4 cup of chicken breast, for example.  

But, for every gram of protein in beans, you're also taking in about 3 grams of carbohydrate and a lot more calories. 

RELATED: How To Get More Protein for Fewer Calories

What about the carbohydrates in beans? 

Although beans are relatively high in carbs, these are some of the healthiest types of carbs. The carbohydrate portion of beans is a combination of fiber and starch. But about half the starch in beans is actually what we refer to as resistant starch. That means it resists digestion and absorption in the small intestine and goes on to function much like fiber in the gut. 

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