It is, declares Christina Baskerville, one of our great British dietary contradictions.

We are the world’s greatest consumers of the baked bean.

Yet, when it comes to consuming other similarly healthy pulses, we have scant knowledge or regard for them.

She may, though, be helping to change that attitude, thanks to her one-pot meals created in Somerset that are now available at a supermarket near you.

You may have already seen Christina’s Easy Bean meals on the shelves of Waitrose and John Lewis food halls.

They are certainly catching on and the fact that one of the nation’s most prominent supermarket names has seen fit to stock them has given the product a truly hefty endorsement.

“Easy Bean began in 2007 but before that I had done a lot of market research and got the name and identity established,” said Christina.

“I used the Farmers Market in Bristol for research, by trying to reach an urban audience, targeting the young professional who wants to eat healthily.”

The bean-based one-pot comes in various recipes, such as Moroccan tagine, Indian sambar and New Mexican chilli. Chickpeas, butter beans, red and brown beans all feature.

The pots are designed to be heated in the microwave.

The recipes, says the company, “elevate the humble pulse to superfood status.”

“They are for eating, predominantly, at lunchtime, though it can also be a supper,” Christina adds.

It’s been a reasonably swift upward climb to success for Easy Bean.

They launched in 2007 at a London food fair and by 2008 had done enough to get their first listing from Waitrose, selling in their convenience stores.

“We have done very well and now we’re in the main Waitrose ones”

Locally you can find them at Waitrose in Bath, Weston-Super-Mare, Crewkerne, Poole, Salisbury, and Ringwood from mid-June.

Easy Bean’s base is South Barrow near Yeovil in South Somerset.

Christina has been there for a while, though. She said: “I came down to the West Country at the beginning of the 1990s and got involved in a speciality meat business called Barrow Boar, one of the first to be selling wild boar meat in the UK.

“I settled and sold the company after seven years and went off to work for a cheese company as commercial manager.

“I used to work in tropical agricultural in Central and South America and Africa. That is where the ‘bean maestro’ title comes from. I have worked with legumes and pulses in the Tropics, where they are exceedingly important as they put nitrogen back into the soil.”

Home for the 52-year-old is some nine miles away near Sherborne and the business employs a staff of five, some part-time, some freelance.

“One of our hopes is that we encourage the consumer to get more informed about beans, what they look like, where they come from.

“Without knowing it we are already a nation of bean lovers (we are the world’s largest consumer of baked beans) – they just don’t realise they are pulses. It’s ironic, as they came from America where they don’t eat them.”

Easy Bean, she says, is “pretty ambitious and keen not to let some of the people who have copied the idea try and steal the show.

“We think what we make has a lot of advantages.

“Ours have a distinctive home- made quality and they are made in low batches _ with low fat, high fibre, no salt and all gluten free.”

Each pot also provides two to three portions of our five-a-day fruit and vegetables requirement.