My 2024 word of the year is...Beans.

Hear me out on this one.

I’m not a big one for New Year’s resolutions.

Challenges can be fun —I’ve embarked on budgeting and home-organization resets, taken alcohol pauses, and completed multiple yoga challenges in January — and I generally love leaning into fresh-start energy at the beginning of a new year.

But resolutions feel different from challenges: even the root word “resolve” evokes a white-knuckled, gritted-teeth effort to change something about oneself, permanently, and often in the negative: I resolve to stop (fill in the blank.)

Not very compelling for me, let alone fun.

So I was half-joking this morning when, flipping through a cookbook full of delicious-looking legume-forward recipes, I said to Eric, “This New Year, I think I’m gonna resolve to eat more beans.”

“Beans, huh?” he responded.

“Yep. I’m going all-in.”

Eric and I say a lot of weird and often very random things to each other, so we both let it go at that and each went about our day.

But I found myself returning to this idea of beans-as-resolution again and again. Why couldn’t, I wondered, a resolution be as simple as adding a favorite food group to one’s daily diet? Why couldn’t “more beans!” act as as a sort of metaphor for what a nourishing, nurturing, values-based New Year’s intention might look like?

Photo by Tijana Drndarski on Unsplash

Maybe this all seems like a bit of a stretch, but hear me out - I promise I’m going somewhere with this.

5 reasons “eat more beans” is my one and only resolution for 2024:

1. Beans are really good, and also really under-represented in my family’s diet. We probably eat them once a week; I’d like to aim for four or five times a week at least. From the “Blue Zones” longevity soup we prepared at my retreat last fall to flavor-packed sides like garlicky white beans and spinach to my family standby, black-bean nachos, there are so many delicious ways to make beans that I’m truly missing out by not exploring them to their fullest.

2. Beans reflect values I’m trying to cultivate in my life. First of all, they’re humble, frugal, and unfussy, all traits I admire. Making them can be quick (just pop open a can, rinse and go) but to maximize their flavor and value, starting from dried beans with a good soak and simmer is key. That requires forethought, intentionality, and a slower approach: all practices I want to develop. And their flavor, which is good even in the simplest preparations, can be drastically elevated with seasonings—making them a perfect canvas for the practice of creativity.

3. Years ago, when I first started flailing around in my relationship with food, I was introduced to the idea that beans are bad for you; a mashup of carb-phobia mixed up with fears over lectins and phytic acid (both of which, turns out, are neutralized when beans are soaked.) And while I didn’t logically buy in, the idea still planted itself somewhere in the recesses of my brain and has been hard to dislodge. Since then I have read a ton of solid nutrition advice from sources I respect about why beans are, actually, quite delightfully good for most of us; and quintupling my intake feels like a subversive way to stick it to diet culture.

4. Speaking of all the ways beans are good for you, I could use a boost of both protein and fiber in my diet, and beans offer a hefty dose of each. And when it comes to lifestyle changes, I’ve always found it easier, and more effective in the long term, to start by ‘adding in’ things that are good for me rather than restricting things that aren’t. (More beans in the belly = less room for other stuff I’d rather not make a habit of.)

5. As much as I like the idea of a “word of the year” as a way to orient myself toward a way of thinking or being, I have found that a word alone usually isn’t enough to help me make lasting changes.
   
   Philosophical words like “slow” or “space” - both WOTY I considered for 2024 - are inspiring concepts but often too ambiguous for me to channel into action.
   
   What if, I wondered, I went in reverse: choose a goal so small, and real, and foundational, that it helps steer me in the direction of a conceptual ideal?
   
   I mean, beans. How much more fundamental can you get?

Photo by Ivan Dostál on Unsplash

And, as a bonus? Beans are beautiful. Just looking at these colorful images makes me feel a little happier, and I’m looking forward to indulging more regularly.

Maybe my bean-eating life goals strike you as a little silly, and that’s OK. Mostly, I hope this post just gives you permission to think a little differently about your intentions or resolutions or “word of the year” as you head into 2024.

Or maybe it’s just inspired you to toss a can or bag of beans in your shopping cart next time you’re at the supermarket.

Either way, I call it a win.

PS: This will be my last essay before 2024. If you’re taking part in the So-Slow Book Club, be sure to look for a First Bird thread in our chat area early Monday morning (and look for the other book club threads that are already there.)

PPS: In case you missed it - this week’s podcast episode is a cozy chat about cultivating creativity and would be a great way to ease into the New Year. Maybe as you simmer a pot of beans on the stove.