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Beans are a common food around the globe and for good reason: they’re rich in fiber, protein, and can be delicious.

You might think of beans only as an ingredient in chili con carne or baked beans, but they’re not limited to these applications – in Japan, for instance, red beans are commonly used in desserts.

National Bean Day is a delightful opportunity to shine a spotlight on the delicious and healthy food that beans are!

How to Celebrate National Bean Day

Beans are one of the most versatile food items. The best day to celebrate National Bean Day would be to involve beans in all of your meals for the day, particularly in places where you wouldn’t necessarily expect them.

Enjoy Eating Beans

Start the day with a traditional full English breakfast, which includes baked beans and toast among all of the other things, then have an ordinary lunch followed by red bean ice cream or red bean mochi, and for dinner prepare some meal which involves beans – chili, black beans and rice, white bean soup, North Indian rajma, or any other bean specialty.

Learn About Different Types of Beans

There are also various Chinese sweets that also incorporate either red beans or mung beans.

That, of course, excludes things like soya beans which are used both fresh (as edamame) as well as in various sauces and condiments ranging from soya sauce to miso and various fermented condiments found throughout southeast Asia and northeast India.

Tempeh and tofu are also made from soya bean and that just goes to show how versatile and essential beans are to various cuisines worldwide.

So whether you’re indulging in a nice steamy bowl of chili or a Japanese sweet, there are numerous ways to celebrate this food on National Bean Day!

Send a Silly National Bean Day Message

Perhaps a bit surprisingly, electronic greeting card websites seem to have a lot of references to National Bean Day!

Even for those folks who don’t enjoy beans and don’t want to have anything to do with them on National Bean Day, it’s still possible to send greeting cards to your friends to mark the occasion.

History of National Bean Day

The day commemorates the death of Gregor Mendel, a Czech geneticist whose experiments with breeding pea plants formed the basis of modern genetics, who died on this date in 1884.

In addition, the day honors the father of Paula Bowen, the founder of National Bean Day. Bowen’s father was a pinto bean farmer, so she’s pretty familiar with beans and no doubt was raised on them.

Beans are also healthy and common in many cuisines throughout the world, so of course they deserve a day dedicated to them!