Then, when all the fiber and resistant starch make it down to our large intestine, they can feed the good bacteria in our colon. Researchers fed people a little over a cup of canned chickpeas a day, and in just three weeks, some of the bad bacteria—the pathogenic and putrefication bacteria—got crowded out, cutting the number of people colonizing a high “ammonia-producing bacteria” nearly in half, indicating that chickpeas “have the potential to modulate [our] intestinal [microbiome] to promote intestinal health” within a matter of weeks.

If you feed people resistant starch, a type of fiber found in beans, within days, the bacteria that eat resistant starch shoot up, and then die back off when you stop it. Eating just a half can of chickpeas every day may modulate the intestinal microbial composition to promote intestinal health, by increasing potentially good bacteria, and decreasing pathogenic and putrefactive bacteria.