Important health reasons to avoid aquafaba also known as chickpea “bean water” as a plant-based egg substitute as harms include inflammation of the gut and elevated miscarriage risk.
Over the last few years, aquafaba has become all the rage within some alternative cooking circles.
In essence, it is the bean water from canned or cooked chickpeas (garbanzo beans). Sometimes other types of legumes like fava (faba) beans are included in the definition as well.
Technically speaking, aquafaba is similar to rice water, which has many health benefits. However, while the water from cooking rice is safe to consume, bean water is best avoided.
What is Aquafaba and How is it Used?
The sticky, thickened water from cooking beans has the curious ability to whip up just like egg whites, stiff peaks and all! Thus, it makes an excellent egg replacer for those allergic to eggs or those espousing a vegan diet.
Chickpea water, in particular, is useful for whipping up egg-free desserts from brownies to homemade ice cream. One reader of this blog commented that it works extremely well as nondairy milk for making homebrewed lattes.
Social media groups with thousands of fans regularly share a seemingly endless array of ideas, recipes and other suggestions for using it.
But, should you really be consuming this slimy, gel-like liquid? Is it safe?
And more importantly, did traditional cultures use it?
Certainly, given their frugality and “waste not, want not” mentality, if cooked bean water was healthy to use, a clear pattern of historical use would prove it, right?
The History of Aquafaba
Aquafaba as food for humanity is very new on the scene. A French tenor named Joël Roessel first considered its use as a foodstuff in 2014 while investigating the possibilities of vegetable-based foams.
Later, a pair of French thrill-seekers independently posted a viral video showing how to make a dessert out of whipped chickpea foam.
Goose Wohlt, a vegan software engineer living in Indiana, perfected aquafaba in 2015. He first used chickpea cooking water to make a meringue to take to Passover seder.
After vegan blogs picked up the idea, it migrated to social media forums, and a movement was quickly born.
The name aquafaba is a blend word combining “aqua”, meaning water, and “faba” for faba beans. Goose Wohlt originally coined the term with a community of social media fans adopting it. (1)
Not to be outdone, aquafaba quickly gained the attention of the food industry.
In 2015, the New York condiment company Sir Kensington’s debuted Fabanaise, the first aquafaba-based vegan mayo. $8.5 million in investment funding quickly followed.
The product is highly profitable because the cooked chickpea water in the mayo is sourced as a waste product from an upstate hummus company. (2)
More industrial food uses are sure to follow.
Scientific Research
Suffice it to say that the science of what constitutes aquafaba is not at all clear at the present time. This is not surprising given that aquafaba didn’t exist as a culinary ingredient prior to 2014.
Only the peer-reviewed publication, the Journal of Visualized Experiments (JoVE) that publishes experimental methods in video format, uses the term as of this writing with research published in February 2018. (3)
Dr. Martin Reaney of the University of Saskatchewan in Canada led a team that found that the foam from canned chickpea aquafaba varies in composition depending on the commercial source.
Processing methods are the determining factor such as soaking, cooking and/or dehydration. The pH, temperature, pressure, and duration of these methods affect its makeup as well.
Analysis using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy reveals that the foam consists mainly of polysaccharides, sucrose, and heat soluble protein fractions including defensin, histone, and superoxide dismutase among others. NMR also detected the storage proteins provicillin and leguminin.
Findings presented at the 2nd International Conference on Food Chemistry & Nutrition found that aquafaba quality from commercially canned chickpeas is inconsistent. (4)
Most alarmingly, Dr. Reaney’s research demonstrated the presence of saponins in aquafaba responsible for its soap-like foaming effect. This confirmed a hunch to that effect prior to testing.
These chemicals are dangerous to human health, contributing to the development of leaky gut and potentially a miscarriage risk. More on this with citations below.
Reasons to Avoid Aquafaba
If you’ve been intrigued by the buzz about aquafaba and the chorus of some alternative voices who advocate using it, I would strongly advise you to hold back your enthusiasm and avoid jumping on the bandwagon at least for the time being.
Here are 6 reasons to stay cautious and not be an early adopter of this trend.
Canned Chickpea Water Dangers
Canned bean or chickpea water (liquid from any canned food for that matter!) is almost certainly laced with a chemical cocktail of hormone-disrupting substances.
The industrialized packaging process involves pouring boiling hot food into cans lined with a thin layer of plastic containing the industrial chemical BPA. This triggers the leaching of the chemicals into the water, and to a lesser extent, the food too.
The companies that profess to use BPA-free cans typically use another chemical called BPS, which is just as bad. The risks to your endocrine system from these chemicals are simply not worth it. Stay away!
If you absolutely must use chickpea water, then at least use the water from chickpeas packaged in glass jars.
Bean Water Not a Traditional Food
Evidence that suggests that traditional societies consumed legume cooking water is hard to find. Ancestral diet advocate Dr. Chris Masterjohn recommends drinking the water from soaking legumes for the folate content. (5)
However, I could not find a solid ancestral reason for doing that either.
This piece of wisdom on the matter from the well-respected cookbook Nourishing Traditions:
Traditional societies whose cuisines are based on legumes prepare them with great care. Beans are soaked for long periods before they are cooked. The soaking water is poured off, the beans are rinsed and in the case of chickpeas the skins picked off. As the legumes cook, all foam that rises to the top of the cooking water is carefully skimmed off. Sometimes water is replaced midway during the cooking process. Such care in preparation ensures that legumes will be thoroughly digestible, and all the nutrients they provide well assimilated because such careful preparation neutralizes phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors and breaks down difficult to digest sugars.
It seems that if consuming the soaking or cooking water for beans and other legumes was a good idea, at least one culture would have done it. They certainly wouldn’t have replaced the cooking water halfway through cooking if they thought it was valuable to use as food!
Obviously, carefully soaking and then replacing the cooking water indicates they were attempting to get rid of something. That something is anti-nutrients that harm health.
Old cookbooks published prior to the Green Revolution which kicked off around 1930-40 do not advocate using legume cooking water other than suggesting very small amounts for mashing beans.
Until some solid anthropological evidence of this practice comes to light, it seems prudent to abstain from this recently popularized method.
File aquafaba under “fad” until further notice.
Aquafaba = Ultragassy
So you’ve decided that avoiding canned bean water because of the chemical risks from the packaging is a good idea. What about making aquafaba at home instead?
I’m sorry to tell you that homemade aquafaba is a bad idea too.
The reason is the large, complex sugars called oligosaccharides that are present in abundance in legumes. Humans, in fact, all mammals cannot digest them because they do not produce the enzyme alpha-galactosidase, which is necessary to break them down.
No worries, as methane-producing microbes in the colon are happy to break them down for you instead. This makes for potentially embarrassing, smelly encounters with others. Gas, bloating and diarrhea are also common when these substances are eaten. (6)
Soaking and thoroughly cooking legumes have traditionally been the solution to eliminate this problem. However, if you consume the soaking and/or cooking water where the oligosaccharides go when they leave the chickpea, lentil or bean, then the gas prevention strategy is lost.
Keep a bottle of Beano on hand in that case as it contains the necessary enzyme and will beat the methane microbes to the bean the punch.
Better yet, skip the aquafaba meringues at the office party.
Dangers of Saponins
As confirmed by research, the presence of saponins is responsible for the egg white-like foaming effect from whipping chickpea water.
Saponins are a class of chemicals present in legumes in significant amounts. (7, 8, 9)
Agave also contains a lot.
Saponins are a toxic steroid derivative that disrupts red blood cells. They should be avoided during pregnancy as consumption can induce a miscarriage by stimulating uterine blood flow. They also contribute to the development of leaky gut over time by damaging the gut wall.
Does eating aquafaba once or twice damage the gut? Probably not. But using it as your primary egg replacement for months or years is a risky move!
Saponins are thermally sensitive and dissolve in water when soaked or blanched causing a detergent-like effect. Notice the picture of the cooking beans on my stove below.
Do you want to eat that saponin-loaded foam?
Really?? Maybe try whipping the detergent water from washing your clothes for that next batch of egg-free macaroons too.
Just kidding.
Note that the quotation from Nourishing Traditions above states that legume-eating traditional cultures carefully skimmed off this foam. Obviously, they knew that this stuff was dangerous since their preparation methods incorporated this step.
Beware of propaganda suggesting that consumption of saponins increases hydration and cellular uptake of water or is otherwise beneficial to health. Eating them has no benefit in the diet whatsoever.
Avoiding them is one reason we cook beans and shouldn’t consume the cooking water even if it whips up nice and pretty for making desserts.
Faba Bean Dangers
Naming aquafaba after the faba bean, in particular, was clearly a Freudian slip! Faba beans are the most dangerous legume of all that can cause serious health problems in a large swath of the world’s population.
Faba beans, more popularly known as fava beans, are the most dangerous legume in the world, accounting for a serious and potentially life-threatening reaction that 400 million people worldwide are susceptible to.
Consumption can trigger a hemolytic anemia episode known as Favism after the fava (faba) bean. This is due to the most common human enzyme deficiency-related response in the world called Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) deficiency.
It typically occurs in people of Mediterranean, Southeast Asian, or African descent. It is particularly dangerous in children.
If you are genetically susceptible to the dangers of faba beans, I sure wouldn’t be going and consuming aquafaba made from them either!
Egg Nutrition “Whips” Aquafaba
Ultimately, the biggest reason to avoid aquafaba is that it doesn’t come close to replacing the nutrition of eggs.
Comparing anti-nutrient loaded, detergent-like bean water that few if anyone in history consumed to Nature’s perfect food prized by numerous indigenous societies for its unmatched blend of healthy fats and complete protein is just plain foolish!
My advice to aquafaba fans? Eat your eggs my friends and get them from your own backyard hens, a neighbor, or farmer’s market if you are rightfully concerned about the horrid abuse of birds used to produce commercial eggs.
If you are allergic to chicken eggs, try duck eggs or goose eggs which some people tolerate much better.
If you truly need an egg substitute, try this chia seed egg replacement. You won’t get gas from it or damage your intestinal health like with bean water!
I’m going to go collect the gorgeous eggs from my backyard henhouse now!
*The Healthy Home Economist receives no revenue from the meat, egg or dairy industry. Nor does she own stock or have any financial interest in companies supporting these industries.
(1) Origins of Aquafaba
(2) Aquafaba: An Explanation and History
(3) Composition and Properties of Aquafaba: Water Recovered from Commercially Canned Chickpeas
(4) Factors affecting functional properties of aquafaba, water recovered from commercially canned chickpeas
(5) How to Get Enough Folate
(6) Putting the Polish on Those Humble Beans
(7) How Do Grains, Legumes and Dairy Cause a Leaky Gut? Part 2: Saponins and Protease Inhibitors
(8) Saponins of quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa): Effects of processing on their abundance in quinoa products and their biological effects on intestinal mucosal tissue
(9) Saponins as cytotoxic agents: a review
Boy, everyone just didn’t understand the difference between soaking bean water and using clean water to cook the beans.
Sarah,
On March 9, 2018 you posted a link to an scientific, empirically-based meta-analysis of Saponins as cytotoxic agents: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2928447/
With the specific education I’ve received, I understand that reading jargon-filled research can be VERY confusing. But I’m wondering you “… maybe gave it a read just for grins?”
The saponins specifics researched and analyzed were from agave, ginko, sea cucumber, yams, garlic, and leeks although NOT specifically as food, more on a cellular level from genus or class species in plant form, as well as in existing pharmacological medications and supplements. The collective outcome/results seen consistently across all studies examined, the findings were SPECIFICALLY that cytoxins (which is celluar death) and haemolytic action (the rupture of red blood cells), saponins tested lupane-type compounds (the sugars) and found they selectively inhibited the growth of cancer cells (different human cancers such as leukemia, non-small cell lung, colon, CNS, melanoma, ovarian, renal, prostate, some brain tumors, and breast) WITHOUT affecting normal cells.
It is important that we know the risks of our food, but we also do not want to be part of counter-culture of misinformation due to a lack of understanding in what we are reading. Turns out many holistic and ancient remedies from centuries ago in Asian countries and adopted by Western nations are just now recognizing the actual benefits of saponins. NONE of the studies researched legumes. Therefore that cannot be assumed to be dangerous – especially when the actual scientific evidence is finding that saponins actually kill some cancer cells and DO NOT HARM NORMAL CELLS.
This is just ridiculous egg-lobby propaganda. “most dangerous bean in the world!” LOL…
What’s dangerous is the poultry industry and it’s confined animal feeding operations. It’s a horror movie of inhumanity, anti-biotics and hormones.
Really interesting information! I’m sorry for all the ignorant comments, people really have a tough time separating ideas from ideologies. Anyway, I’m curious to know what your thoughts are on the egg substitutes that are typically sold at supermarkets (e.g. Bob’s Red Mill’s “Egg Replacer” or Follow Your Heart’s “VeganEgg”). Are these a better substitute for eggs than your chia seed recommendation?
Just took a quick look at Bob’s Red Mill replacer … it’s not too terrible and certainly better than aquafaba, but I personally wouldn’t use it. It contains psyllium husk which is quite harmful to gut health. Here’s more info: https://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/psyllium-husks-benefits-uses-risks/
That said, if you use it only occasionally, it probably wouldn’t prove to be an issue for most people.
I’ve used aquafaba for whipped cream and meringues for years and have had zero problems, including multiple healthy pregnancies (even twins!) resulting in healthy children who also consume aquafaba with no issues. It’s also the only dairy free whipped cream I’ve made that has never triggered my digestive issues, and it’s the only whipped topping one of my daughters enjoys eating, even beating out actual dairy. Some people may experience problems from anti-nutrients, but for my family the benefits have far outweighed any detrimental health effects, which (if they exist at all) are so minor nobody’s noticed them. I see no harm in trying aquafaba, if it causes noticeable problems it can always be discontinued.
I stumbled upon this article, but having come a third way through I felt increasingly that – despite the good link here and there – the author was really really looking for problems with aquafaba. This is not to say there might be a concern of eating too much of it, but then that goes for a lot of food produce – there can even be such a thing as ‘too much of a good thing’. Neither was it weighed against the alternative – eggs – which for a majority of people will come from farms that overuse antibiotics and have poor hygiene. I feel the whole ‘it must be ancestral, or I’ll bin it’ approach is colouring your viewpoint. Eggs, after all, wasn’t something our ancestors ate throughout the year – in fact, it was seasonal only. So it seems the ‘ancestral’ line is drawn rather subjectively & arbitrarily in this article.
Ummm, no … there are plenty of new foods that weren’t ancestral that are fine that I blog about on this site. Avocado oil and sprouted bread are a couple big standouts.
There is disturbing evidence that aquafaba unbalances and harms the GI tract. People who rely on this as an egg substitute are really asking for trouble.
Sorry to read that you are recommending people avoid saponins because of toxicity problems.
The main dietary sources of saponins are legumes (soybeans, chickpeas, mung beans, peanuts, broad beans, kidney beans, lentils), they are also present in oats, allium species (leek, garlic), asparagus, tea, spinach, sugar beet, and yam. These are know anti-cancer foods and the saponins are not concentrated or easily absorbed in the intestines, as stated in the NIH article you referenced.
Non-dietary saponins as those used in the cosmetic industry are to be avoided for consumption as they are concentrated in processing and could have adverse health effects.
I might mention that ‘Aquafaba’ is a new fangled name for water used in soaking and cooking legumes. The use of the bean water is not new and, in fact, is quite ancient as the advent to indoor plumbing and spontaneous access to fresh running water is rather recent for the common households in advanced nations.
Clearly you are not well read in the diets of ancestral cultures!
A couple of points one is the the link on quinoa research uses rats as the study model while talking about humans. This makes the research nearly worthless. It is standard USA practice to use studies of captive rats and other animals who are not being fed their natural diet or a deficient dietwhile being kept in a cage and then even more ridiculously extrapolating those results to humans who have completely different biological systems. All animal and rat studies must be rejected because they do not apply to humans.
Anyone who responds with the illogical fallacy about “rates share 98% of DNA and biology with humans” needs to understand that this terrible fallacy underpins so much of so called human studies.
BPA has been legislated against in many places but not all which kind of moots the first reason not to consume the bean water.
Also this discussion and blog has foregone any discussion of acceptable rates of either saponins or phytic acid. As this blog post points to the practice of canning, cooking and changing water varies hence why you cannot equivocally say whether or not to use bean water for consumption. Personally I rinse the beans to avoid gas, aid digestion, improve taste and to lower phytic acid intake, nevermind the saponins.
No to animal torture on ethical principles and NO to any captive animal studies because they do not yield scientifically applicable studies for humans on any subject matter.
Many of us avoid eggs for ethical reasons and eating aquafaba occasionally really won’t bother us. I’m never eating eggs and promoting that cruel industry again. Little possible health issues, that are also debatable are worth risking when compared with those billions of exploited little lives.
Even Ellen Degeneres (longtime vegan) eats eggs from happy backyard hens! Claiming that eggs from all chickens is exploitative is foolish and indicates a complete lack of knowledge of chickens in general. My chickens are proud to lay eggs … they come and get me when they’ve laid each day! 🙂
None of your sources say that saponins are “dangerous” or “toxic”.
“These compounds can thus affect animals in a host of different ways both positive and negative.”
“Saponins exert a wide range of pharmacological activities including expectorant, antiinflammatory, vasoprotective, hypocholesterolemic, immunomodulatory, hypoglycaemic, molluscicidal, antifungal, antiparasitic and many others (Sparg et al. 2004; Sahu et al. 2008). Plants rich in saponins, like Panax ginseng or Glycyrrhiza glabra, have been used for medicinal purposes since ancient times (Fiore et al. 2005) and to date continue to play a significant role not only in medicine but also in food and cosmetic industry, where they are utilized as emulsifiers or sweeteners (Güçlü-Üstündağ and Mazza 2007). Another important application of saponins is their use as adjuvants in the production of vaccines (Sun et al. 2009b).” (Speaking of vaccines, I don’t suppose you also think those are bad because they didn’t exist a 1000 years ago?)
“However, processing quinoa, during the manufacture of an infant cereal, reduced the concentration and membranolytic activity of saponins, and increased the palatability and nutritional quality of the cereal product to a level similar to that of a wheat‐based cereal product.”
And in Reaney’s research:
“Peptide mass fingerprintingidentified aquafaba proteins contributing to foaming properties”
*The word saponin is not even mentioned once in this entire paper!*
I disagree with your assessment. Phytic acid is another anti-nutrient like saponins that fools claim is beneficial (it chelates toxins which is true) while ignoring that it rips your gut apart over the years leading to intractable intestinal illnesses. You are of course free to each as much saponin rich food as you like. Be warned though, ancestral cultures avoided eating both saponins and other anti-nutrients like phytic acid!