What's Eating America

Kaitlin Brito for NPR

A fiber craze is sweeping the nation, just as the U.S. bean industry aims to double American consumption of legumes by 2030. Bean-centric recipes are popping up all across social media, and there are even "bean-fluencers" in a corner of TikTok called BeanTok. One heirloom-bean subscription service has become so popular it now has a waitlist of tens of thousands of people. Many Americans fall short of their recommended fiber intake, and beans provide an excellent solution. Plus, as food prices rise, beans offer a budget-friendly and nutritious source of protein that can keep you as satisfied as beef can, according to a study published in The Journal of Nutrition. Here are some of the health benefits of beans:

🫘 Beans help keep people regular and feeling full. They can also help maintain blood sugar levels, can lower cholesterol and are associated with a reduced risk of cancer.
🫘 Pulse crops, like beans, are thought to positively influence the microbes in our gut, according to Henry J. Thompson, a professor at Colorado State University who has researched the impact of beans on human health. He adds that they may help suppress microbes associated with certain diseases.
🫘 Some beans have a roughly 1-to-1 ratio of fiber and protein, which is a lesser-known fact, Thompson said. There are about 8 grams of protein in half a cup of cooked kidney, navy, cannellini or black beans.

Saving money on food can be challenging. NPR's latest newsletter journey will help you choose, plan and cook three affordable meals over four weeks. The guide will also give you tips on dining out. Sign up for the How to Cut Your Food Bill here.

Behind the story

Emily Feng/NPR

One of the really big stories on my beat covering China for the last decade has been Beijing’s intensive ramp-up in detaining and persecuting Uyghurs, a primarily Muslim ethnic minority. The global scrutiny of these detentions led to sanctions on Chinese officials, as well as U.S. legislation banning the import of goods made from Uyghur forced labor — all of which, of course, further strained U.S.-China ties.

Beijing would occasionally cite the presence of Uyghur militants in Syria and Afghanistan as justification for these detentions. So imagine my surprise when I found lots of Uyghurs while reporting for NPR in Syria, after the Assad regime crumbled in December 2024.

But getting the Uyghurs in Syria to agree to an interview was difficult. Syria’s new government banned interviews with them, and the Uyghurs were suspicious, having lived in near-total secrecy for more than a decade.

But after a few months of talks with them, the Uyghurs said they were ready to sit down and grant interviews. I was nervous to meet them because they are a heavily armed militia. I also brought with me Uyghur and Arabic-speaking producers. I knew that although many fighters spoke good Mandarin Chinese, a language I speak, they associate the language with state oppression.

In the end, we were able to interview more than 40 Uyghurs and their families for this NPR series. We spent more than a month reporting in northern Syria and visiting many of the battle sites where they fought alongside Syrian rebels. We discovered a lot of the Uyghurs had first tried and then lost faith in peaceful dissent, turning to armed resistance in large part because of generations of repression — suggesting, perhaps, that Beijing’s ethnic policies had exacerbated the very problem they were trying to address. The NPR podcast State of the World is running the whole series in one episode. 

3 things to know before you go

Jeff Pachoud/AFP via Getty Images

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This newsletter was edited by Suzanne Nuyen.