What are legumes? Why nutrition experts love TikTok's dense bean salad trend

Need a new weekly meal prep idea? Try the dense bean salad.

Violet Witchel, a social media creator and culinary student, has gone viral over the last few months for sharing recipes for what she calls a "dense bean salad": a nutritious and legume-forward meal.

"Every week I meal prep a dense bean salad, which is a veggie-packed, protein-heavy dense salad that marinates in the fridge and gets better throughout the week," Witchel explains at the beginning of her videos.

She offers a wide variety of dense bean salad recipes, including a spicy chipotle chicken salad, sundried tomato salad, grilled steak tzatziki salad and a miso edamame salad. The ingredients vary, but usually follow a formula of two different types of legumes, a handful of vegetables, a vinegar-based dressing, fresh herbs, and sometimes a meat-based protein.

What makes these recipes such a healthy choice? Here's what nutrition experts want you to know about legumes, the star of the dense bean salad.

What are legumes?

Witchel's dense bean salads usually contain some combination of chickpeas, cannellini beans, lima beans or edamame. Other types of legumes include black beans, pinto beans, lentils, peas and peanuts.

Legumes are a nutritious staple around the world because they're an "inexpensive source of protein, vitamins, complex carbohydrates and fiber," according to the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Along with eating plenty of fruits, vegetables, whole grains, nuts and seeds, eating more legumes has been linked to a significantly lower risk of heart disease, high blood pressure, stroke, and type 2 diabetes, research has shown.

"Legumes are as close to a superfood as you can get," registered dietitian Miranda Galati tells USA TODAY. She adds thats the combined nutrients make them "an incredibly nutrient-dense food that will keep you full, too."

More: Green beans are one vegetable you really can't get too much of. Here's why.

Is it OK to eat beans and legumes every day?

For most people, it's generally fine to eat beans and legumes every day. In fact, consuming them can not only prevent the aforementioned health ailments, a 2014 study published in Nature showed that they can actually help to treat those diseases in people who already have them.

"I see social media content spreading fear about lectins and anti-nutrients in legumes, but the benefits far outweigh those exaggerated risks," Galati says. Lectins are a type of protein that binds to carbohydrates and resist being broken down in the gut, which can lead to digestion issues including stomach pain, bloating, gas and diarrhea, per Harvard.

The good news: cooking legumes inactivates most lectins, Harvard notes. There isn't actually much research on the long-term health effects of active lectins on the human body, and most of the research that does exist is done on people in countries where malnutrition is common, which casts doubt on the idea that lectins in legumes are actually what's causing larger health issues.

What are the healthiest beans to eat? Boost your daily protein and fiber with these kinds.

"If you’re eating cooked — not raw — beans, and your digestion can handle them, there’s very little risk to consuming them daily," Galati says.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: What are legumes? Understand this healthy, trendy food