Are Chickpeas Good for Weight Gain?
Contents
Are you looking to gain some healthy weight? Are you researching the best foods to help with weight gain? Today I will be talking about if chickpeas are good for weight gain.
Are Chickpeas Good for Weight Gain?
Chickpeas can be part of healthy weight gain, but they won’t cause it on their own. In order for you to gain weight, you need to consume more calories than you burn each day. Chickpeas are a much healthier way to add calories than fast food.
It’s very easy to gain weight when eating hyper-palatable foods; foods laden with salts, fats, and sugar. However, if fast food is what you are eating you can easily overconsume calories with lots of fat and carbs and gain unhealthy weight.
Chickpeas, also known as garbanzo beans, are a good source of both carbs and protein. A cup of cooked chickpeas provides more than 10 grams each of protein and fiber. According to Harvard’s Nutrition Source, chickpeas have a low glycemic index, so they raise blood sugar slowly.
As with many plants, the protein in chickpeas is considered lower quality than animal sources. However, it can still be part of a balanced muscle-building diet.
The catch for weight gain is that chickpeas are very filling. To add calories, pair them with calorie-dense foods: hummus made with tahini and olive oil, chickpeas tossed in oil and roasted, or chickpeas mixed into rice, pasta, or curries.
Are Chickpeas Good for Weight Loss?
A 2016 study pooled 21 trials and found that people who ate about one serving of beans, lentils, chickpeas, or dried peas per day lost about 0.75 pound (0.34 kg) over a median of six weeks compared to those who didn’t eat these pulses. With plenty of fiber and protein, legumes help keep you full longer.
Are Chickpeas a Healthy Snack?
Chickpea items such as packaged dry-roasted chickpeas and dark chocolate-covered ones are a convenient snack, as they are a good source of protein and fiber. Chocolate-covered versions add sugar, so treat them as a dessert.
Eating about one serving a day of beans, peas, chickpeas, or lentils may also help your heart. A 2014 meta-analysis of randomized trials found that it lowered LDL (“bad”) cholesterol by about 5%.
Sources
- Chickpeas (Garbanzo Beans), Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source
- Effect of dietary pulse intake on established therapeutic lipid targets for cardiovascular risk reduction, CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal)
- Legumes and Pulses, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, The Nutrition Source
