Refried beans, canned

Listed nutrients, per 100 g

For each nutrient, the value this page uses is marked “used”. A row marked “second database” is another database’s figure for a matching food, kept so you can see how far databases disagree (they can differ in the samples analysed, lab methods and rounding). Its own cells are worked out from it, but none of the page’s words or scores are.

Change the amount to rescale the first column. Nutrients a database doesn't list are missing, not zero.

Hazard rows as the dataset rates them

• Aluminum · Nothing to watch: under the limit · No cap: EFSA's 2008 tolerable weekly intake for aluminium is 1 mg/kg body weight/week, 70,000 µg a week. At 0.445 µg/g (canned baked beans as a proxy, 12 composites from 2000-2012), about 157,300 g of refried beans a week, eaten alone, would reach it. A daily 90.35 g serving, 632 g a week, is 0.4% of the limit (0.6% at the 650.7 ng/g from the other composite set). · Health Canada Total Diet Study, trace elements · B
• Bisphenol A (BPA) · Worth knowing · Flagged for bisphenol A from can linings: EFSA's 2023 tolerable daily intake is 0.2 ng/kg body weight/day, 14 ng a day at 70 kg. At 25.8 ng/g (Health Canada Total Diet Study, canned baked beans as a proxy, 4 composites), 0.54 g of canned beans in a day, eaten alone, would reach it, and a 90 g serving carries about 166 times the limit. CFIA surveys of canned beans read much lower (a mean of 1.0 ng/g in pinto beans, 4 samples, still about 6 times the limit), so the size depends on the can lining and brand. · Health Canada Total Diet Study, BPA · B
• Cadmium · Nothing to watch: under the limit · A daily serving adds 1.8% to an average adult's cadmium intake (EFSA 2012 adult median, 1.77 µg/kg body weight/week; Canadian adults in 2007: 1.2-1.75), far from doubling it, so no cap. · Health Canada Total Diet Study, trace elements · B
• Glyphosate residues · Nothing to watch: under the limit · No cap: EFSA's 2023 acceptable daily intake for glyphosate is 0.5 mg/kg body weight/day, 35,000 µg a day at 70 kg. At the CFIA lower-bound mean of 0.02238 µg/g (bean products, 50 samples, 22 detected), about 1,564,000 g of refried beans a day, eaten alone, would reach it, and a serving carries 2.0 µg, 0.006% of the limit. The category is processed bean products, not refried beans specifically. · CFIA chemical residue monitoring (2016–2023) · B
• Lead · Nothing to watch: doesn’t double average intake · No cap: no safe limit is set for lead. A daily 90.35 g serving at 3.36 µg/kg (Health Canada Total Diet Study, canned baked beans as a proxy, 15 yearly composites) carries 0.3 µg, 0.9% of the average adult's 35 µg a day (EFSA 2012); at the recent mean of 1.83 µg/kg the share is 0.5%. No refried-beans measurement exists, and the figure is a lower bound. · Health Canada Total Diet Study, trace elements · B
• Nickel · Nothing to watch: under the limit · No cap: EFSA's 2020 tolerable daily intake for nickel is 13 µg/kg body weight/day, 910 µg a day. At 0.3052 µg/g (canned baked beans as a proxy, 12 composites), about 2,982 g of refried beans a day, eaten alone, would reach it, and a serving carries 27.6 µg, 3.0% of the limit. FDA's canned refried beans (3 samples) average 450 µg/kg, which gives 40.7 µg a serving, 4.5%, and about 2,022 g a day. · EFSA 2020 · B
• Ochratoxin A · Context · Shown as context, not rated: ochratoxin A has no safe level (EFSA's 2020 benchmark dose lower limit (BMDL10) is 14.5 µg/kg body weight/day, for kidney tumours), and the average adult intake is not available to test a share against. At the CFIA bean-products mean of 1.362 ng/g (35 samples, 17 detected, maximum 26.1), a 90 g serving carries 123 ng, 1.8 ng/kg body weight; a few lots drive the figure. · CFIA ochratoxin A survey (2012–2022) · B
• Phytohaemagglutinin (raw bean lectins) · Context · Shown as context, not rated: commercially canned pinto beans carried about 0.004% of the lectin activity of raw beans (3.8 µg/g dry weight against 93.78 mg/g in raw retail pinto), and the boiling rule applies to raw beans, not to a can. The authors put an entire can at 0.46 mg, about 1,000 times below the amount linked to food poisoning (their figure, for dark red kidney beans). Home-made refried beans from undercooked beans would be a raw-bean case. · Thompson 2025 · B
• Sodium · Context · Context, not rated. One serving carries 334 mg sodium, 14.5% of the 2,300 mg/day chronic disease risk reduction intake (Health Canada DRI); boiled pinto beans carry a few mg. Added salt is the one large difference from the parent. · US food database (USDA SR Legacy) · C

Sources

• CFIA, National Chemical Residue Monitoring Program, Annex B results summaries 2016-17 to 2022-23, Table B-1 domestic and B-2 imported (open.canada.ca datasets 95a14ca0, c87af563, a2ea8989, 9e5211c8, a5cb7c3c, 6567ac46, cf149850); positives-only means, no detection limits stated; pooled by us
  cfia-ncrmp-annex-b-2016-2023 · dataset · Government of Canada terms (Crown copyright)
• CFIA, Food Safety Action Plan Targeted Survey - Ochratoxin A in Selected Foods, 2012-2018 and 2019-2022
  cfia-ota-2012-2022 · dataset · Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0 (as for the other CFIA datasets; not checked on this page)
• Health Canada, Canadian Nutrient File 2026 (14th edition)
  cnf-2026 · dataset · Open Government Licence – Canada 2.0
• EFSA CONTAM Panel (2020). Update of the risk assessment of nickel in food and drinking water. EFSA Journal 18(11):6268 (PMC7643711) · doi:10.2903/j.efsa.2020.6268 · doi.org
  efsa-2020-nickel · full text read · CC BY (EFSA Journal)
• USDA FoodData Central, SR Legacy, 2018-04
  fdc-sr-legacy-2018-04 · dataset · CC0 1.0 (public domain)
• Health Canada, Canadian Total Diet Study - Bisphenol A (BPA) 2008-2012, 2016 (open.canada.ca, dataset 0497695c-dd4c-42d6-8201-45d63509f416, resource a75e3f05-5de9-4ae6-8da6-4d8d1b4bc75c)
  hc-tds-bpa · dataset · Open Government Licence - Canada 2.0
• Health Canada, Canadian Total Diet Study – Trace Elements (2005–2018 composites)
  hc-tds-trace-elements · dataset · Open Government Licence – Canada 2.0
• Thompson HJ, Neil ES, McGinley JN, Lutsiv T. Toward standardized measurement of active phytohemagglutinin in common bean, Phaseolus vulgaris L. Foods 2025;14(24):4247 · doi:10.3390/foods14244247 · PMID 41464957
  thompson2025-pha · full text read · CC BY 4.0

Body map 2026-10-25.1: each nutrient’s job comes from an agency fact sheet, linked beside it under Good for.

The plain words: “a lot” means one serving (100 g when the food has no serving size) gives at least 20% of the daily amount (the reference intake), “some” at least 10%, “a little” at least 2% (the cut-offs are ours, one set for every page: 20% and 10% are borrowed from the US labelling terms “high” and “good source” and applied to Health Canada’s daily amount, whereas Health Canada’s own shopper rule says 15%; provisional: they may change in a later method version). The daily amount is Health Canada’s Dietary Reference Intake for adults 19–30; where men and women need different amounts we use the higher one (protein: 56 g for men, 46 g for women). The percentage printed under each nutrient is the printed amount as a share of that daily amount, rounded to the nearest whole number, and the word is read from that percentage, so the amount, the percentage and the word always agree. Calcium with a measured absorption is scaled by how well it gets in compared with milk.

The scale: “Nothing to watch” means a serving a day stays under the limit at ordinary amounts; “Go easy” means a serving a day can push past the limit for adults who already take in the most, or fewer than 2 servings reach it; “Limit it” means once a week or less. The dataset’s own rating is under “How we got this”. Provisional: the scale may change in a later method version.

Measured absorption under Good for: grade-A studies in adults that tested this preparation of this food, as a share of the listed amount (the share digested, for protein), quoted once each source has passed our evidence check; animal studies and other variants stay in the table above. Provisional: this screen may change in a later method version.