Tweets,

There's an interesting ethnobiological story behind the Bean Goose. Thanks
to several of you, it appears that the most likely reason for the name "Bean
Goose" is that Linnaeus (ca. 1750) translated a prior English vernacular
name into latin as Anser fabalis. The Bean Goose arrived to winter in
England about the time of the bean harvest, when it gorged on beans.

The beans are not your typical Mexican black bean or any of its New World
relatives of the genus Phaseolus, but rather the faba bean, Vicia faba,
related to the vetches, also known as the broad or English bean. Those
unable to metabolize certain toxins in this genus (an inherited condition)
suffer from "favism":

FAVISM: An acute hemolytic anemia, usually in persons of Mediterranean area
descent, occurring when an individual with glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase
deficiency of erythrocytes eats the beans or inhales the pollen of Vicia
faba (from http://www.rialto.com/favism/).

One thing leads to another.

Gene Hunn.