The University of Kent has joined forces with The Food Foundation and Veg Power alongside food businesses, celebrity chefs and charities to double bean consumption in the UK. The National Lottery funded Bang in Some Beans campaign will see the University become a focal point for activity that champions this healthy, affordable and sustainable superfood, creating unique educational opportunities for Kent students.
Diets low in beans are associated with up to 9,000 premature deaths in the UK. Yet on average we eat just one portion of beans a week, with two thirds of the UK population (66%) consuming even smaller amounts. Now, with a ‘bean revolution’ on its way, this is about to change.
The three-year campaign and programme of work aligns with the University’s existing Right to Food commitment to promote food justice, tackle food poverty and transform the food system so that it operates to advance human health and an environmentally sustainable society.
It will see Kent Students’ Union lead the creation and dissemination of campaign materials amongst students, and support Kent’s cultural societies to work with catering company, Chartwells, to bring bean-based recipes reflective of international cuisines to campus menus. Beans are also being embedded into modules in the School of Arts and Architecture, giving creative and design students opportunities to experimenting with bean-inspired performances, films, books and designs that meet a national campaign brief.
University researchers are exploring opportunities to work with local farmers to devise experimental crop trials and grow beans on University farmland. This could introduce new approaches to bean farming in the region and increase the number of beans grown and sourced locally.
The campaign officially launched on Wednesday 5 November at an event at London’s Barbican Centre, hosted by Professor Olly Double, Reader in Comic and Popular Performance in the School of Arts and Architecture, whose long-term love-affair with beans has inspired his recent comedy material.
Professor Iain Wilkinson, Associate Pro-Vice Chancellor, said: ‘The University of Kent is delighted to be partnering with the Food Foundation, Veg Power and the Ark Agency on this project to promote more bean consumption in the UK. This makes good sense both as means to promote good nutritional health and to advance more environmentally beneficial and sustainable approaches to agricultural farming. Beans are the central ingredient in many traditional and iconic dishes in global cuisine, and we plan to celebrate this with students and staff on our campuses. The University of Kent will be committed to build communities of nourishment and hospitality through the promotion of beans-based meals. We look forward to sharing our experiences and learning with all those allied to networks and movements to increase the amount of beans we eat and the great pleasure of eating them.’
Rebecca Tobi, Head of Food Business Transformation, The Food Foundation, said: ‘As an affordable, healthy and sustainable food, beans deserve to play a much bigger role than they currently do in helping us to eat better as a nation, with two thirds of the population eating less than a single portion of beans a week. At a time when food prices continue to rise, beans are a win-win-win for our wallets, as well as for our health and the environment.’