a plate of beans

•	Describe what you picture when someone references "a plate of beans".
•	baked beans!
•	A white round porcelain plate with baked beans on it.
•	Nitpicking
•	Mostly beans being moved around forlornly on a plate. On a related note, it is surprisingly difficult to find an animated GIF of a plate of beans.
•	Some beans on a plate.
•	I'm standing in a light, airy kitchen next to a wooden table, upon which sits a round, white plate almost entirely covered with Heinz baked beans.  they're very slightly steaming.  no utensils are in sight, for whatever that's worth.
•	A white porcelain dinner plate with about a half-cup of dried pinto beans on it.
•	Refried beans, cheese on top.
•	A white plate with a number of distinct, solid, pinto beans
•	overthinking
•	A thick, off-white ceramic dinner plate with (depending on what I'm hungry for), lima beans or the kinds of Tex-Mex beans that come in a can.
•	A red ceramic plate, approximately six inches in diameter, with some baked beans on top.
•	Vegetarian baked bean pooling in their own juice on a simple white plate.
•	A white plate with brown canned-style beans
•	a white bowl with Bushe's baked beans
•	A dog's dinner
•	Cannelini Beans, I guess.
•	A white ceramic plate with a little pile of kidney beans on it.
•	AskMe question overthinking that could be solved by just asking the other person, or 90% of late night dorm conversations.
•	White china plate with baked beans on it
•	an actual heaping plate of beans that all have sad faces and some of them are smirking and eating popcorn
•	A professional white plate with kidney beans on it.
•	A white, very shallow bowl of US-style baked beans. They are steaming hot.
•	a plate of beans
•	Refrieds, with melty, melty cheese.
•	Literally or figuratively?
•	White plate, brown beans, some steam.
•	Beans on a plate, wet and squishy from the can. The beans cover the entire plate up to the rim. There are no condiments.
•	A plate of beans.
•	overthinking something dumb
•	Green beans.  Fried with oil and garlic.
•	People are having an unnecessarily long discussion about something that is for all intents and purposes irrelevant.
•	a plate of beans
•	a heaping plate of red beans
•	Overthinking, being picky.
•	a lint filled navel
•	Red beans in unpleasantly sweet sauce, like from a can. The plate might be styrofoam.
•	baked beans on a tin (enamel) plate, held by a grubby hobo
•	A plate of beans, ready to be consumed by the fires of vehement discourse. An analytic of finitude, as it were.
•	a plate with lots of beans on it but carefully spread so that they're in a single layer... no bean stacking!!!
•	Just a reference to someone overthinking things.
•	A saucer with the contents of about one 12-oz can of black beans on it.
•	A depressingly literal plate of baked beans, a solitary drop of sauce dripping onto the table.
•	Pedantic hipsters
•	Honestly, knowing the context, I see Rodin's "The Thinker" with a plate of Heinz Baked Beans in front of him.
•	A sad smallish white plastic plate with like 6 beans left in some sauce.
•	White plate, baked beans atop it
•	The kind of metal plate you used to see in prison movies. With beans on it. Probably a swwetish sauce as well.
•	a white plate with boston baked beans steaming in the middle.
•	black beans
•	a shallowly curved plate, heaped with disappointing boiled beans
•	Baked beans on a white china diner plate
•	Overthinking.
•	Baked beans from a can, on a plate
•	A tin blue camping plate, covered in baked beans.
•	a paper plate of either pinto beans or baked beans
•	a literal plate of various beans that somehow despite being a plate of literal beans makes poor relationship and/or dietary decisions.
•	a little plate, like a saucer, with a little pile of cannellini beans piled in the center.  The plate has some generic flowery frou frou design on it.  A little billow of steam emanates from the beans like the cloud off the top of Everest.
•	A white china plate with a pile of baked beans atop it. I don't know why; I don't even like baked beans.
•	A small, salad-sized plate of black beans, dumped out of a can.
•	a small white plate with kidney beans on it
•	that song, hayyyyyy i'm on metafilter and i can overthink a plate of beans.
•	an old-school metal, lipped camping plate full of, like, lukewarm baked beans
•	Kidney bean salad on a plate
•	A big plate of beans
•	baked beans in tomato sauce
•	White plate, small white beans with red sauce, reminiscent of Heinz Baked Beans, in a heaping pile.
•	basically the farting scene from Blazing Saddles
•	a plate of beans
•	Overthinking something that doesn't deserve much thought.
•	A white plate with black beans on it
•	A... plate of beans. Perhaps lima beans.
•	A white plate with about a 1 inch white rim, everything but the rim covered in baked beans, with a slight mound in the middle, and a little dribble of the gravy/sauce on the rim.
•	A white plate with baked beans
•	Red kidney beans on a white plate.
•	a plate of beans!
•	Standard no-frills Heinz dumped unceremoniously on a blue plate.
•	a plain white porcelain dish with tan-brown beans in sauce, as if poured from a can of baked beans.
•	White thick diner china, with pork-and-beans with all the pork chunks removed, but the sauce still present.
•	A white ceramic plate with baked beans artlessly spread about on it.
•	A white china plate with a pile of whole pinto beans mounded in the middle.
•	refried, pinto beans. On a plate.
•	Liked the Baked Beans from Tommy? It kind of grosses me out actually. This is much more due to seeing Tommy as a kid than anything metafilter has done.
•	A white plate with baked beans on it. There are little steam lines coming off of the beans.
•	Overthinking a situation but also baked beans mmmmmm
•	Horace Rumpole had a twitter avatar for a while of him actually starting at a plate of red beans, wearying a blue MetaFilter shirt. That.
•	A white plate with one scoop of baked beans
•	Baked beans such as those from a can like Heinz or Bush's brand.
•	A white dinner plate of cooked large white beans.
•	A white plate, with a wide flat lip, completely covered with a single layer of baked beans.
•	A styrofoam plate with some refried beans (always refried) crusted onto it.
•	white beans, with chopped parsley, lemon zest, cracked pepper, and lots of richly colored oil, nicely plated on a square white restaurant plate.
•	A plate of hot kidney beans, possibly with chilli sauce.
•	a plate of beans, and a cartoon stick-person frowning confusedly over it
•	Someone sadly and intently starting at a plate full off pinto beans, trying to divine some deeper meaning
•	A plate full of black beans.
•	An actual plate of beans or a tin of beans
•	A white plate with whole pinto beans.
•	a plate of beans
•	White plate, pile of cooked pinto beans
•	A plate of beans slowing turning into farts.
•	baked beans, diner china
•	Brown Heinz beans on a round white ceramic plate, seen from the side at an angle (so the outline is elliptical). I *might* be beanplating the plate of beans, here.
•	an overcomplicated analysis of something
•	I don't picture anything but I take it to mean navel gazing/nitpicking
•	a literal plate of beans.  i am sure this is some sort of mefi inside joke i don't get
•	A platter of individual beans, such as kidney. Uncooked.
•	A dinner sized plate full of pinto or black beans
•	A plate of canned kidney beans
•	A literal plate of refried beans
•	Heinz beans sloppily dumped on a plate
•	the plate of beans created in glitch http://www.joshmillard.com/2011/10/27/overthanking-a-plate-of-injokes/
•	a plate of beans.
•	A ceramic plate with red beans
•	Ralph Wiggum
•	Baked beans. Sometimes on toast. On a white plate. A little runny.
•	Beating a dead horse with a rotten stick.
•	A fiestaware plate with refried beans.
•	a plate.  with beans on it.  probably pinto beans - i'm not sure why.
•	A literal plate of beans, in which everyone describes how the plate of beans appears to them from their subjective point of view.
•	As a metaphor this doesn't work for me, so I picture lunch.
•	a metaphorical large plate of brown mushy beans, badly spiced and overthunk
•	A pottery piece of dishware covered in wet baked beans.
•	White plate swimming with Heinz Baked Beans.
•	Baked beans, white round plate.  No wienies.
•	Erm, a plate of beans
•	A round porcelain dinner plate, in the center of which is a large serving of baked beans. The baked beans are in the sauce that baked beans come in (baked bean sauce?) and thus the portion of beans is approximately level, rather than being heaped into a pile in the center. The beans are relatively small, probably navy beans. The sauce is an orange-red hue of moderate viscosity.
•	A plate with beans (legumes, not green beans) on it
•	Literally. Baked beans on a plate.
•	Beans on a plate and someone staring very hard at them and rubbing their chin.
•	baked beans on a tin plate
•	Pinto/refried beans.
•	seriously overthinking a problem
•	A white paper plate with soupy pinto beans (though not refried).
•	A white teacup plat with a few dry haricot beans on it.
•	a cartoon steaming plate of baked beans.
•	Yummy, tasty, delicious overthinking of a topic.
•	a paper plate with baked beans
•	plate of black beans, cooked.
•	arguing pointlessly over picayune details or minutiae
•	a can of pork and beans sitting next to a plate.
•	Black beans, about half an inch high in the middle of the pile, on a white plate.
•	a plate with a heaping pile of red beans
•	a plate of beans
•	A white plate with a pile of Heinz baked beans with sauce on it.
•	A white porcelain plate full of baked beans with lots of sauce
•	an old tin plate with canned beans on it, like a stereotypical cowboy would eat
•	A plate of beans
•	A white ceramic plate with an artful pile of scarlet runner beans in the middle.
•	Overthinking
•	A neat little pile of Campbell's pork and beans on a round, white plate sitting on a plain kitchen table. A spoon. The open can, still nearby. A 12-year-old boy standing in front of it, scratching his head, with a puzzled look on his face.
•	A plate is a broad, concave, but mainly flat vessel on which food can be served. A plate can also be used for ceremonial or decorative purposes. A plate is composed of: The well, the bottom of the plate, where food is placed. The lip, the outer edge of the plate (sometimes falsely called rim). It can be flat (like a pizza plate); or inverted (slanting down); or everted (more common, slanting up). The rim, which is actually the lip seen in profile—the opening of the vessel; sometimes with a gilded line. The base, which is sometimes used interchangeably with "well", but actually refers to the underside. Plates are commonly made from ceramic materials such as bone china, porcelain, and stoneware, as well as other materials like plastic, glass, or metal; occasionally, wood or carved stone is used. Disposable plates, which are often made from paper pulp, were invented in 1904. Also melamine resin or tempered glass such as Corelle can be used. The term bean originally referred to the seed of the broad or fava bean,but was later expanded to include members of the New World genus Phaseolus, such as the common bean and the runner bean, and the related genus Vigna. The term is now applied generally to many other related plants such as Old World soybeans, peas, chickpeas (garbanzos), vetches, and lupins. Bean is sometimes used as a synonym of pulse,[citation needed] an edible legume, though the term pulses is more correctly reserved for leguminous crops harvested for their dry grain. The term bean usually excludes crops used mainly for oil extraction (such as soy-beans and pea-nuts), as well as those used exclusively for sowing purposes (such as clover and alfalfa). Leguminous crops harvested green for food, such as snap peas, snow peas, and so on, are not considered beans, and are classified as vegetable crops. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization the term bean should include only species of Phaseolus; however, a strict consensus definition has proven difficult because in the past, several species such as Vigna angularis (azuki bean), mungo (black gram), radiata (green gram), aconitifolia (moth bean)) were classified as Phaseolus and later reclassified. The use of the term bean to refer to species other than Phaseolus thus remains. In some countries, the term bean can mean a host of different species. In English usage, the word bean is also sometimes used to refer to the seeds or pods of plants that are not in the family leguminosae, but which bear a superficial resemblance to true beans—for example coffee beans, castor beans and cocoa beans (which resemble bean seeds), and vanilla beans, which superficially resemble bean pods. Unlike the closely related pea, beans are a summer crop that need warm temperatures to grow. Maturity is typically 55–60 days from planting to harvest. As the bean pods mature, they turn yellow and dry up, and the beans inside change from green to their mature colour. As a vine, bean plants need external support, which may be provided in the form of special "bean cages" or poles. Native Americans customarily grew them along with corn and squash (the so-called Three Sisters), with the tall cornstalks acting as support for the beans. In more recent times, the so-called "bush bean" has been developed which does not require support and has all its pods develop simultaneously (as opposed to pole beans which develop gradually). This makes the bush bean more practical for commercial production. Beans are one of the longest-cultivated plants. Broad beans, also called fava beans, in their wild state the size of a small fingernail, were gathered in Afghanistan and the Himalayan foothills. In a form improved from naturally occurring types, they were grown in Thailand since the early seventh millennium BCE, predating ceramics. They were deposited with the dead in ancient Egypt. Not until the second millennium BCE did cultivated, large-seeded broad beans appear in the Aegean, Iberia and transalpine Europe. In the Iliad (8th century BCE) is a passing mention of beans and chickpeas cast on the threshing floor. Beans were an important source of protein throughout Old and New World history, and still are today. The oldest-known domesticated beans in the Americas were found in Guitarrero Cave, an archaeological site in Peru, and dated to around the second millennium BCE. Most of the kinds commonly eaten fresh or dried, those of the genus Phaseolus, come originally from the Americas, being first seen by a European when Christopher Columbus, during his exploration of what may have been the Bahamas, found them growing in fields. Five kinds of Phaseolus beans were domesticated by pre-Columbian peoples: common beans (Phaseolus vulgaris) grown from Chile to the northern part of what is now the United States, and lima and sieva beans (Phaseolus lunatus), as well as the less widely distributed teparies (Phaseolus acutifolius), scarlet runner beans (Phaseolus coccineus) and polyanthus beans (Phaseolus polyanthus). One especially famous use of beans by pre-Columbian people as far north as the Atlantic seaboard is the "Three Sisters" method of companion plant cultivation: In the New World, many tribes would grow beans together with maize (corn), and squash. The corn would not be planted in rows as is done by European agriculture, but in a checkerboard/hex fashion across a field, in separate patches of one to six stalks each. Beans would be planted around the base of the developing stalks, and would vine their way up as the stalks grew. All American beans at that time were vine plants, "bush beans" having been bred only more recently. The cornstalks would work as a trellis for the beans, and the beans would provide much-needed nitrogen for the corn. Squash would be planted in the spaces between the patches of corn in the field. They would be provided slight shelter from the sun by the corn, would shade the soil and reduce evaporation, and would deter many animals from attacking the corn and beans because their coarse, hairy vines and broad, stiff leaves are difficult or uncomfortable for animals such as deer and raccoons to walk through, crows to land on, etc. Dry beans come from both Old World varieties of broad beans (fava beans) and New World varieties (kidney, black, cranberry, pinto, navy/haricot). Beans are a heliotropic plant, meaning that the leaves tilt throughout the day to face the sun. At night, they go into a folded "sleep" position. Some kinds of raw beans, especially red and kidney beans, contain a harmful toxin (lectin phytohaemagglutinin) that must be removed by cooking. A recommended method is to boil the beans for at least ten minutes; undercooked beans may be more toxic than raw beans. Cooking beans in a slow cooker, because of the lower temperatures often used, may not destroy toxins even though the beans do not smell or taste 'bad' (though this should not be a problem if the food reaches boiling temperature and stays there for some time). Fermentation is used in some parts of Africa to improve the nutritional value of beans by removing toxins. Inexpensive fermentation improves the nutritional impact of flour from dry beans and improves digestibility, according to research co-authored by Emire Shimelis, from the Food Engineering Program at Addis Ababa University. Beans are a major source of dietary protein in Kenya, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia. Beans have significant amounts of fiber and soluble fiber, with one cup of cooked beans providing between nine and 13 grams of fiber. Soluble fiber can help lower blood cholesterol. Beans are also high in protein, complex carbohydrates, folate, and iron. Many edible beans, including broad beans and soybeans, contain oligosaccharides (particularly raffinose and stachyose), a type of sugar molecule also found in cabbage. An anti-oligosaccharide enzyme is necessary to properly digest these sugar molecules. As a normal human digestive tract does not contain any anti-oligosaccharide enzymes, consumed oligosaccharides are typically digested by bacteria in the large intestine. This digestion process produces flatulence-causing gases as a byproduct. This aspect of bean digestion is the basis for the children's rhyme "Beans, Beans, the Musical Fruit". Since sugar dissolves in water, another method of reducing flatulence associated with eating beans is to drain the water in which the beans have been cooked. Some species of mold produce alpha-galactosidase, an anti-oligosaccharide enzyme, which humans can take to facilitate digestion of oligosaccharides in the small intestine. This enzyme, currently sold in the United States under the brand-names Beano and Gas-X Prevention, can be added to food or consumed separately. In many cuisines beans are cooked along with natural carminatives such as anise seeds, coriander seeds and cumin. One effective strategy is to soak beans in alkaline (baking soda) water overnight before rinsing thoroughly[citation needed]. Sometimes vinegar is added, but only after the beans are cooked as vinegar interferes with the beans' softening. Fermented beans will usually not produce most of the intestinal problems that unfermented beans will, since yeast can consume the offending sugars.
•	A plate, with beans on it.
•	Myself clubbing the person in effigy (see also "special snowflake," "is this the hill you want to die on," "google-fu")
•	Baked beans sliding around on a white ceramic plate
•	Someone looking veerrryyy closely at a plate of beans, as if studying for signs of life.
•	Baked beans on a plain white plastic plate.  It is not appetizing.
•	A flat plate, with slightly soupy baked beans pooled on it.
•	Kidney beans on a plate.
•	"A plate.
•	With beans on it"
•	yucky baked beans on a thick white ceramic dinner plate
•	A white plate with a pile of black beans on it.
•	A light blue plate of sad, half congealed baked beans.
•	a literal plate, always with pinto beans, but I grok that it's a reference to overthinking
•	Heinz Beanz
•	tin plate, baked beans from a can
•	a plate of beans duh
•	A paper plate with uncooked pinto beans on it.
•	"I always picture a plate of baked beans, on a (professional?) white or maybe light blue, dinner-sized plate. I think I see them this way because the beans are mixed into something more, rather than just individual beans.
•	Sure, the beans are served up on a plate, but the sauce is what holds them all together. The plate is Metafilter, the beans are the members, the posts and comments we make become the sauce. You need all the ingredients together or it doesn't work. Maybe that is why Mefites love recipe threads!
•	Sometimes people get too fighty, and the sauce becomes too spicy/salty to be palatable. That's ideally where the mods come in.
•	I suppose the mods could be, at various times, the bacon or ketchup that flavors the beans, or even the fork that digs into the beans? lol.
•	"
•	Over-tired, self-congratulatiory in-joke
•	A plate of baked beans
•	A white plate with pinto beans on
•	Someone overthinking something.
•	The scales of justice with some dried pinto beans scattered on one of the scale plates.
•	In my mind, it is a literal plate of beans, but not cooked beans. Cooked beans would be all mushy and tend to ooze down the plate, while my plate of beans if more of a heap and the beans tumble down the sides like dry beans.
•	"it's a white beans with some canned plate on it
•	wait, the other way"
•	Black-eyed peas.
•	Yoda picking at a heaping platter of Captain Ken's Baked Beans.
•	the guy who coined the phrase
•	A white plate covered in whitish beans with that pale brown bean liquid surrounding it.
•	Needless introspection and/or hair-splitting.
•	A paper plate with brown beans on it.
•	red kidney beans
•	Black beans and recie
•	Kidney beans, boiled, on a plate.
•	A plate of brown Lima beans.
•	A pyramid-shaped pile of beans, sans-bean juice, of indeterminate bean-variety, in the middle of a plate.
•	A plate of cooked pinto beans.
•	A flat tortilla with black beans on it. I want to eat it.
•	a white china plate with...like, the kind of beans that you would put on toast? anyway, those beans, sort of spread around the plate
•	a plate of beans
•	Baked beans on a disposable plate.
•	Something that is being over analysed to an extent that it can't be analyzed any more.
•	a white plate with a pile of brownish black beans
•	heinz canned beans on a white paper plate, there is a grease stain on the plate
•	uhm...a plate of beans?
•	tired expression
•	I picture a plate of beans. Does that make me unimaginative.
•	A round cobalt blue ceramic plate with a heaping pile of cooked pinto beans
•	an empty plate
•	A plate of kidney beans. Glistening.
•	A plaque.
•	A white dinner plate with a serving of baked beans sprawled untidily across it.
•	Five power users (who know who they are) sitting around a campfire agreeing to what offends them.
•	A literal white plate with a layer of baked beans
•	A pasta bowl with black beans, with some cilantro as garnish.
•	Like, a plate, with beans on it?
•	Pork n Beans
•	A plate with beans on it.
•	A plain white dinner plate with a small can's worth of Van Camp's Pork and Beans dumped on it.
•	a plastic plate (clay red or pinkish in color) completely filled with canned baked beans in sauce
•	An actual plate of beans, and then the metafilter wiki
•	A plate of beans (kind of what you imagine cowboys eating from).
•	A white plate with uncooked kidney beans on it. They are separated into two portions of unequal size, because someone has been interrupted in the middle of counting them. When they get back, they may discover that they've forgotten which portion is the one they've already counted, or how many beans they'd counted so far, and so they'll have to start all over.
•	a metafilter thread
•	A white plate with baked beans.
•	a person contemplating a literal plate of beans.
•	It's too complicated to explain
•	A plate of beans being rendered as a 3d frame image, somewhere in Plato's Realm of Ideas.
•	a plate of beans
•	Portland 10th Anniversary Party.
•	A white plate with a can of beans poured out on it. Unappetizing.
•	Baked beans on a cheap white paper plate.
•	Baked beans on a white plate
•	I have a funny story about being served a plate of beans at a MeFi meetup (that I'm pretty sure happened before it became a catchphrase on the site). Anyway, I usually picture that particular plate of three types of unseasoned beans, which was all a Portuguese restaurant could come up with to serve a vegetarian who couldn't eat anything else on their menu.
•	A white plate with a heap of brown beans on it. Possibly baked beans.
•	Baked beans, Boston style
•	A paper plate filled with loose (but cooked) pinto beans, no sauce, nothing else.  One of those white paper plates, by the way, with the fluted edge.
•	http://www.ew.com/article/2011/10/10/office-space-reunion-milton
•	Baked bean, dumped unappealingly straight out of the can onto a plain white ceramic plate, perhaps microwaved, but not thoroughly enough because there are still some cold bits in the center.
•	Black beans alone on a blue china plate. They have been gently piled in the center.
•	A very British looking Heinz baked-beans-on-toast affair.
•	A big white plate with some baked beans on it. Gross.
•	A bunch of labcoat wearing nerds prodding a pile of kidney beans with some sort of pointer, muttering amongst themselves.
•	An off-white, cafeteria-style melamine plate, with saucy brown-ish red baked beans piled high and dripping of one edge of the plate.
•	A plate of rinsed black beans.
•	myself looking in the mirror - overthinking a plate of beans is how my brain works
•	Literally, a plate of beans. Metaphorically, a complicated discussion about the number of angles on the head of a pin.
•	Blue round plate completely full of baked beans.
•	A blue camping plate of baked beans
•	Blue plate covered in brown beans, kind of saucey.
•	"
•	a "
•	ALANIS MORISETTE EATING BAKED BEANS WITH A TOO-SMALL PLASTIC FORK OFF OF A SOGGY PAPER PLATE AT A CHURCH PICNIC AND TOTALLY OVERTHINKING IT.
•	a plate of beans!
•	a plate with some pinto beans on it
•	A dinner plate with dark red kidney beans on it.
•	a literal plate of beans
•	a good sized plate of white beans in a redish sauce.
•	Someone perfectly arranging beans, one by one, on a plate.
•	mexican food
•	I imagine baked beans on a white plate that curves up towards the edges—almost a very shallow bowl. It's totally full of beans.
•	"ann-margret covered with baked beans.
•	also, i left the number questions blank because i have no opinion/unwilling to look up user number.  "
•	A plate of cooked red beans, no juice, nothing else
•	a plate of black beans
•	Baked beans, on a nice earthenware plate. Sometimes they are those big Italian white beans, but mostly the smaller sort. They are possibly vegan beans.
•	a plate of baked beans in drippy brown sugar sauce.  Piece of pork optional.
•	An off-white, thick ceramic plate (the kind you find in small town diners) upon which have been poured a cold, sopping mess of tawny, under-cooked baked beans.
•	A ceramic plate with a pile of dried beans. Or sometimes cooked beans. Usually pinto.
•	Hah! An overthought thing.
•	A tin "campfire" pie-plate with baked pinto beans.
•	Black beans on a white circular plate.
•	Large white lima beans
•	refried
•	I sing the plate of beans song in my head
•	no
•	It's a plate
•	a plate with beans on it.. i try not to overthink it.
•	A steaming plate of kidney beans
•	A pyramid of white beans. I don't know why they're white.
•	Plate with simple brown bean stew.
•	A white plate with a serving of baked beans
•	Dinner plate of refried beans
•	Just a plate of Heinz baked beans in that kinda sweet brown sauce, maybe with a few bits of pork mixed in. Very 70s.
•	A lonely old man holding his last candle in a room growing darker and darker.
•	a plate of beans.
•	A plate of baked beans, like from a can.
•	The beans served before the Gemini launch in The Right Stuff.
•	kidney beans
•	A plate with pinto beans on it.
•	Beans on a plate.
•	baked beans with runny sauce on a green plastic school cafeteria plate
•	A person with no creativity rehasing a tired old joke.
•	An over-think.
•	A plate of beans being overthought
•	It's a medium blue ceramic plate with a puddle of baked beans on it.
•	Baked beans on a blue-rimmed diner plate
•	Campbell's Pork and Beans on a plate.
•	A ladle full of beans on a plate for the "blue plate special" in an archetypal old school diner in a movie from the 1930s.
•	A MeFi Blue-colored plate piled high with baked beans.
•	overthinking
•	a plate of beans
•	A plate of beans
•	"a)  A plate with beans in it, as might be found in a ""full english"" breakfast
•	b)  Alanis Morrisette"
•	White ceramic plate, red beans, little bit of sauce. Slightly thicker pile in the center of the plate; about an inch of exposed plate around the edge of the beans.
•	A small paper plate with contents of a can of Van Camp's pork and beans, unheated, dumped in the middle.  There is a plastic spork nearby.
•	A plate, filled with beans.
•	A dinner plate with baked beans on it.
•	"It's a wide, round plate, possibly white, possibly blue. The edge of the plate is slightly raised, to keep the beans from falling off. The beans are baked beans, and they wet with the sauce. Beans are gross, and I would rather stop thinking about them.
•	I would much rather overthink a plate of cured meats."
•	I see a dinner plate piled high with lima beans
•	An over-think.
•	That vampire from X-Files picking beans up off the floor and placing them on a plate one at a time, carefully counting each. Not exactly what it means, but it's a weird association I have.
•	A blue plate with Louisiana red beans and rice on it.
•	A blue porcelain plate stacked high with baked beans.
•	a dinner plate with a puddle of cooked pinto beans on it
•	A literal plate of beans, with different beans sorted into different piles so they're not touching.
•	Simplicity
•	3-4 green lima beans scattered on a white, round plate. Illustrated, not real.
•	A dark pewter dinner plate filled with black beans swimming in a dark sauce.
•	Mush mess.
•	A literal plate of beans.
•	Somebody over thinking a situation
•	literally a plate of baked beans on a white plate.
•	a giant puddle heinz baked beans on a white plate.
•	An actual plate of beans. Usually like "pork 'n' beans" beans.
•	The "Mexican Radio" video.
•	A plate of kidney beans with some sort of sauce
•	Mathowie
•	Plate of baked beans
•	Lima beans, cold, on a white ceramic plate.
•	a big pile of ick
•	Pinto or kidney, depending on my mood
•	A white china plate with a portion of baked beans. (I would prefer to think them uncooked, lima or other, but it's not what comes to mind.)
•	Anymore I picture the plate of beans in Glitch--white plate, kidney-shaped green beans on it.
•	Rodin's "The Thinker"
•	White plate, blue ring around it, baked beans in ketchup.
•	A plate of Heinz beans. Sauce.
•	white plate. indeterminately fuzzy black or pinto beans. cooked. a fork nearby. probably at a restaurant?
•	A lot of beans, in a pile, brown or red, maybe some goopy sauce
•	baked beans, barbecue joint style.
•	A plate of baked beans
•	Someone who overthinks to a ridiculous degree.
•	A lily
•	A white cafeẃare dinner plate with a large but shallow mound of brown baked beans, with perhaps some wisps of steam rising from them.
•	I picture an actual plate of pinto beans, though I know that they mean they're overthinking.
•	overthinking something trivial
•	scrooge
•	A plate, usually paper, with dry beans on it, being sorted for stones and/or inferior sized beans.
•	I don't picture anything because I was reading when the phrase became popular. I guess I would picture someone thinking?
•	Heinz baked beans on toast.
•	a plastic foam disposable plate with a glop of baked beans
•	Sloppy baked beans on a slightly dirty plate. Hot, steaming, sweet-looking. Too liquidy.
•	A can of baked beans dumped out onto a white plate (instead of a proper bowl).
•	An actual plate with carefully stacked and arranged beans. But cooked so kinda drippy.
•	A white plate covered with baked beans in tomato sauce
•	a white plate, turned up at the edges, with uncooked green kidne beans on it
•	A plate.  With beans.  (sadly, baked beans)
•	A plate with an opened can of kidney beans on it.
•	I picture a milky-white cafeteria plate with a messy splay of gross red BBQ beans, not even enough to cover the plate.
•	A tin plate of pinto beans, only slightly moist.
•	English beans at breakfast.
•	People on metafilter overthinking it
•	A white dinner plate filled with a layer of brown baked beans from a can. Sometimes I also think about a plate that is so full of red kidney beans that the beans form a little convex mound when viewed from the side.
•	A plate of beans.
•	Literally? A plate of baked beans, brown bread. (I live in Maine, where this + hot dogs the color of Red Dye No. 2 = main dish in many kitchens. Not mine, though -- never been a fan of the baked bean.)
•	A white plate of baked beans
•	Overthinking.
•	I picture somebody sitting on a toilet, like Rodin's Thinker, thinking really, really hard.
•	a can of baked beans poured sloppily on a paper plate, surrounded by a group of MeFites overthinking heavily.
•	Plate heaping with warm, generic-looking reddish-brown beans -- not refried beans.
•	Whatever you make of it...
•	A plate with a little heap of cooked pintos or baked beans
•	a plate with beans on it
•	A headache wrought by overthinking.
•	Baked beans.
•	A piece of white china, no pattern, with a tiny mountain of dry uncooked beans on it.
•	A light-yellow plastic elementary school cafeteria plate filled to the brim with a pile of navy beans, juices and steam swirling about as if with the intention of a coma victim.
•	I'm going to have to think about this question for a long time.
•	A white dinner plate with uncooked kidney beans scattered on its surface.
•	"a plate of beans", not sure what else I could picture here.
•	refried beans
•	A cartoon-y, Schoolhouse Rock picture of a plate heaped with beans in a thought bubble above the head of a cartoon figure obviously thinking too hard about something.
•	Baked beans.
•	A plate with beans on it.
•	a heaping pile of heirloom stripey beans
•	A badly-cooked philosophical conundrum.
•	blue plate with baked beans on it and a person frowning at it.
•	A spotted metal blue plate of canned baked beans, with a soup spoon.
•	I do not picture anything
•	A white plate with dry black beans on it
•	Alanis Morrissette singing My Humps while carrying a styrofoam plate of lima beans.
•	a white plate with red kidney beans
•	Canned baked beans, glistening gently in the florescent glow of the all night diner, exuding a powerful smell of brown sugar and ketchup, in a white soup plate, with a dented spoon to the right side.
•	A plate. With beans.
•	a plate with beans on it
•	black beans on a plate
•	A plate covered with vegetarian baked beans- not piled up, but spread flat.
•	A white ceramic dinner plate covered in kidney beans
•	White plate with scalloped edges, baked red kidney beans in their own sauce.
•	The plate of beans image someone made for the Glitch game as an in-joke for MeFites.
•	anything that can be overthought
•	A dinner plate with a pile of black beans on it
•	A large ceramic plate covered in baked beans
•	a plate of beans
•	Diner plate of baked beans.
•	A china plate with reddish-yellow baked beans on it (the kind you'd find in an English breakfast)
•	A group argument over frivolous things
•	baked beans on a white paper plate
•	White styrofoam plate with baked beans
•	Scurvy
•	A large blue plate, covered almost to the rim with baked beans, and someone staring intensely at it.
•	A white plate covered in baked beans (the kind in a red/brown sauce)
•	baked beans from a can on a plain chipped plate
•	A blue dinner-sized plate full of baked beans.
•	A plain white ceramic plate, holding the cold contents of a can of baked beans, on a marble pedestal.
•	Cortex staring at a plate while wearing a fedora
•	17 Lima beans on a white china plate. Not cooked.
•	A plain white porcelain plate (square with rounded corners) 10 inches wide, with an entire can of kidney beans in agar agar, or some similar slimy sauce, dumped on it.
•	Syrupy baked beans, flat across a white plate
•	White Chinet, runny pork and beans.
•	Chili
•	white american dinner plate, filled with pinto beans. sometimes baked beans in sauce.
•	No
•	A bowl of beans
•	A white bowlish plate on a checkered yellow tablecloth. It is full of beans, reddish-brown, cooked (steamed? boiled? They're a bit moist, in any case. They've come out of a pot of water). The beans are steaming.
•	Lima beans on one of those paper plates with blue decorations around the border, like you'd use at a 4th of July barbecue. It is not a heap of beans, they fill the plate but only in a single layer.
•	White plate, uncooked haricots
•	a plate of baked beans
•	A plate. With beans on it. Sometimes I picture baked beans, sometimes lima beans. Often I picture a person peering at the beans through a jeweler's loupe, prodding the beans and muttering to themselves.
•	A white plate, covered in the contents of a tin of baked beans.
•	A white plate topped with Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce, sitting in a void
•	A big white dinner plate full of pinto beans.
•	A plate of green edamame beans which are pushed indecisively around with a fork, over and over.
•	A plate of red baked beans (Heinz)
•	No image, it's just another metaphor.
•	a plate of beans, big, white beans. Navy beans.
•	white round plate with heap of baked beans in read sauce
•	A round plate of kidney beans
•	Plate of baked beans.
•	A plate of Heinz beans, English style, on toast
•	Baked beans on a plate. May include cheese
•	A white, round china plate, with a little ridging around the edges, covered in Heinz baked beans, the sauce dripping everywhere.  Something like that scene from the movie version of The Who's Tommy.
•	A white porcelain plate with Heinz baked beans on
•	The scene from 'Blazing Saddles'.
•	A plate of heinz baked beans
•	A plate of beans
•	A sloppy plate of baked beans
•	A toddler, covered in beans, gazing in perplexity at a plate with beans smeared all over it.
•	A plate. With some beans on.
•	baked beans
•	A plate with baked beans on it.  In some kind of reddish-brown sauce.
•	Pinto beans on a small salad size white plate. They are cooked.
•	A round white plate with brownish baked beans in sauce on it
•	"A plate of beans - a side view of a pile of red beans on white rice in a big white bowl.
•	Beanplating - an overhead view of a small, blue plate with a scattering of various canned beans: kidney, lima and pinto, mostly."
•	"A white plate covered to the edge in English-style baked beans. A person stares into their infinite reflections in the the many sauce facets.
•	Occasionally a bit a sauce drips off the edge."
•	at first, just a plate of beans. Preferably black beans. Now, I picture someone overwhelmed with a plate of beans that they must eat individually. With chopsticks.
•	I don't
•	A 10" white glazed porcelain plate, perhaps with a thin blue line 1/2" from the rim.  On the plate are some black beans, cooked until completely done, with a little of the cooking liquid.  The beans have been prepared with bay leaves, oil, and salt, so they are quite edible.  There are enough that they cluster together, covering roughly 3/5 of the plate, with a few sitting on top of the base layer.  It's a plate of beans ready to serve for a lunch or early dinner.  Is there rice?  Probably - a bit of cooked brown basmati rice on the side will help the dish stay together.
•	baked beans, white plate. slopping over the side.
•	a plate of beans ?
•	A literal plate of beans.
•	a large plate topped with about a can of canned baked beans in all their canning liquid glory
•	A red plate with Heinz Baked Beans in a big blob in the middle
•	A full dinner plate of Boston-style baked beans.
•	Kidney beans
•	A pile of steaming baked beans covering the entire plate with the tomato sauce dripping slowly over the edge. Probably over 1000 beans from at least two tins of Heinz (English recipe of course). On a plain china plate with a diameter of 20cm. Perhaps a gentle pattern in the porcelain, but nothing fancy.
•	A white plate covered in dripping brown beans (like the typical canned pork and beans)
•	White plate, several beans spread out, not touching.
•	I plate of black beans.
•	A plate of beans
•	overthinking!
•	A white plate with a small pile of baked beans and nothing else.
•	Southern-style soupy white beans on a beige melamine plate.
•	A plate.  With some beans on it.  Dry beans, not a lot, and a few different kinds.
•	Overthinking something
•	Sitting at a bar for a meetup, puzzling over a problem and someone says, "This is Metafilter. We can overthink a plate of beans."
•	Someone sitting in a comfy chair over-thinking something REALLY hard.
•	Myself, sitting in front of the laptop, spending 15 minutes thinking up an answer to this question.
•	Overthinking something.
•	A plate with beans on it
•	Cooked beans of some sort left to go cold due to contemplative prevarication.
•	a plate with beans on it, baked beans
•	A metal plaque (like at a building entrance)
•	one of those really cheap paper picnic plates soaked through with a few ladles of soggy, lukewarm baked beans
•	frijoles negras with sour cream and plantains
•	A big, round, MeFi blue dinner plate with a mound of baked beans filling the whole surface.
•	I picture a literal plate of beans and someone (just a vague, fuzzy someone) staring at it.
•	a plate with dried beans on it (like navy beans or black beans)
•	Kidney Beans
•	A dripping plate of red beans and rice.
•	White beans
•	A big pile of over-ly detailed informational beans
•	a plate of beans
•	A literal plate of beige peans, with a bunch of hands pointing it at.
•	A round plate holding only beans.  Baked beans.
•	Regular red beans, from a can, on a plate, like at the Boston 10th Anniversary meetup.
•	A tin plate of baked beans
•	A bunch of Heinz baked beans emptied out on a plate, probably cold
•	A plate of canned baked beans with a blob of ketchup on top.
•	Overthinking something simple
•	its a fairly abstracted term for me
•	a plate of beans
•	A plate of shrimp.
•	Tin plate, undercooked pintos. Gold rush miner style.
•	A plate of beans. Baked beans in sauce.
•	A very rustic plate of pewter. It's something the early town guilds in France perfected (the plate and the process), with it eventually migrating, as all things French, northwest to England and the Worshipful Company of Pewterers. Modern canned baked beans, however, are de rigeur for the plating of MetaFilter beans, thereby bringing the quaint custom into the 21st century.
•	Tin plate, with a heap of non brand baked beans piled in the middle
•	Heinz baked beans on toast with HP sauce
•	redundant
•	The Titanic.
•	A plate of white beans in tomato sauce.
•	white plate, red beans
•	something that doesn't matter
•	Someone contemplating an unimportant decision.
•	Baked navy beans, tomato sauce. An entire can of these beans. Thick off-white ceramic plate, like the kind you'd get in a diner.
•	People talking way too much about something very simple and obvious. Or do you mean, do I literally picture a plate of beans? I picture a plate of baked beans. Which are gross.
•	maple baked, brown sauce, fork
•	A green plate of brown beans.
•	overthinking something
•	very wet sloppy red beans - pinto? kidney? Boston baked?
•	A plate with beans on it. Let's not overthink this.
•	A white ceramic plate, unadorned. Baked beans heaped atop.
•	Overthinking
•	A dripping blue plastic plate of cooked pinto beans.
•	The treaty of Westphalia is printed around the edge of the plate.
•	tin of Heinz, on a white plate.
•	a plate and a pile of black-eyed peas with bit of hot sauce
•	A white plate full of Bush's baked beans, warm and steaming because they just came off the stovetop.
•	Nothing
•	a topic that, while trivial IRL, is the subject of obsessive inquiry and overthinking
•	I don't picture anything
•	white plate, brown beans, no sauce
•	pinto beans in a heap on a plate
•	People talking too much.
•	"A cheap red plastic plate covered in an ocean of reddish-brown sauce with a bunch of little islands and shoals of gag-inducing, mushy, disgusting baked beans.
•	You see, when I was a kid, whenever we went on holidays to the small property we had in the mountains, franks and beans would be the dinner served when we got there. I hated those beans; mushy and slimy and gross. And so I would pick away at it, eating the franks, but avoiding the beans, until I had a plate full of beans in that brownish sauce, and I'm staring at it glumly trying to figure out how to get away from the table...
•	So while in the Metafilter context I understand the phrase as a way of expressing a tendency to over-analyze something simple and can laugh about it, it's also got an emotional overlay of being excited to be on holidays and tired from being in the car all day and dreading the parental approbation that is moments away and having to deal with several mouthfuls of food that I just found disgusting (it's a texture thing, I figured out when I got older) and regret that I didn't try to alternate some bites of beans with those franks so I wasn't facing an unremitting plate full of them...
•	(And there goes my anonymity.  Yet more baggage about bean-plating!)"
•	a white plate with a pile of brown beans on it
•	https://youtu.be/jqSJhBdjoD4?t=55
•	A photo from that meet-up where they had a plate of beans. A gentleman was screaming at the beans. I picture him.
•	beans on toast, but the plate replaces the toast. it isn't pretty.
•	"A plate.
•	With baked beans on it.
•	And they are messy and falling off the sides of the plate.
•	I hate baked beans."
•	"white plate
•	baked beans"
•	A small white plate with a pile of baked beans. about a third of a can, dumped in the center. Gooey. Cold. Unappetizing.
•	Baked beans on a white plate.
•	a room full of scientists observing a plate of beans through one-way glass. there are a lot of blackboards, squabbling, slide rules.
•	Someone hunched over a book with a magnifying glass in hand.
•	A white plate almost full of baked beans in tomato sauce.
•	A plate with beans ON it.
•	I don't know.
•	A white plate with a pile of brown beans.  There is very little sauce.
•	A plate of tinned baked beans.
•	a plate of baked beans, possibly with bacon, but it's a very big plate, kind of concave, almost like a bowl, and there are almost too many beans
•	beans on a plate, probably red beans sans rice
•	White plate with pintos.
•	White dinner plate covered in baked beans.
•	Baked beans.
•	A white porcelain dish with a blue rim. With Heinz baked beans on it.
•	White paper plate, can of baked beans poured on it.
•	white plate, baked beans
•	A literal plate of beans; brown beans in brown sauce on a white diner-style plate, not heaped high and enough to cover about 1/3 of the plate, pushed around a bit with a fork.
•	A plate? of beans?
•	A... plate... full of beans?? I guess I missed a meme or I'm too new or something.
•	Canned pinto beans on a dinner plate.
•	Canned baked beans, and not very good ones.
•	black beans with lots of sauce
•	White plate, brown beans, light brown watery sauce. God knows what dish this actually is - it sure doesn't look appetizing.
•	A medium sized white diner-type plate with a pile of Campbell's baked beans on it.
•	I try not to overthink things so a plate of beans, of course.
•	over-board down the rabbit hole of inanity.
•	Baked beans on a plate
•	A dissection into the minutiae of an issue, either with or without fruitful outcome, but certainly with much feather-ruffling by many involved.
•	A cream plate with a brown floral pattern around the edge, filled with a mound of cooked pinto beans.
•	Is it cheating because I googled this when I first joined? But I always see some unnamed philosopher-looking fella asking a plate of beans, "to bean or not to bean? That is the question..."
•	beans on a plate
•	Baked beans (UK style) on a plate, unaccompanied
•	A plate of baked beans.
•	http://i.imgur.com/e0hGKmx.jpg
•	A literal plate of baked beans. Cold. From being stared at for too long.
•	A plate with baked beans in sauce on it.
•	A tired joke.
•	Just beans. Piled high on a plate. Probably US American baked beans.
•	An annoying person overly fond of in-jokes.
•	Wikipedia.
•	The plate of beans from the defunct game "Glitch"
•	Black beans. Rice nearby.
•	Most recently, a diner situation, a white plate, with pinto beans. Sometimes microscopes and other instruments.  Usually the metaphor is also going elsewhere.
•	A plate of beans
•	A few dozen uncooked red azuki beans laid flat in a circle in the middle of an unadorned porcelain plate such that they cover 2/3rds of the total surface area of the plate.
•	I actually picture a can of heinz beans. But when I do picture a plate, it's either the picture from the front of a Heinz can or a clipart plate of beans.
•	people overthinking an argument. also baked beans
•	a talking head droning on and on and on
•	A plate of beans!
•	Shiny opalescent pinto beans on a yellow ceramic plate with a blue cloth napkin.
•	I don't know.
•	I think of that song from MeFi Music that someone made about it.
•	Someone's brain overheating and turning to mush/refried beans.
•	"Brown beans in sauce
•	"
•	a large dinner plate filled with canned baked beans--completely full, like two cans' worth
•	either a dinner plate with baked beans or a thread with many really really long dense argumentative comments
•	A silver-colored platter of black-eyed peas.
•	A heaping plate of kidney beans. Uncooked.
•	a white plate of baked beans
•	I'm pretty damn literal.
•	Plate of beans
•	Beans, on a plate.
•	a rabbit with a pancake on its head
•	a giant fucking plate of beans. black.
•	mark bittmanns espresso black bean chili
•	An actual plate of beans. Pinto, whole.
•	Blue plate. Baked beans from a can. Cold.
•	A tin plate of baked beans, hobo-style.
•	A big, gross actual plate of refried beans.
•	A plate of Heinz Baked Beans being discussed endlessly
•	I see a 16-colour .gif icon depicting steaming baked beans on an old blue enamel plate. Someone is handing them to me. We are on a camping trip. It is night.
•	Kidney beans filling a plain white ceramic dinner plate
•	A literal plate of baked beans, steaming in a giant pile.
•	A literal plate with pork and beans on it
•	A large china plate with various kinds of beans (baked, raw, green, pinto, broad, etc) on it. Hovering over is a person in a white coat and mysterious, scientific looking goggles with a headlamp attached. They have tweezers. They are holding a bean in the tweezers, studying it.
•	a Rube Goldberg contraption of elegant whimsy whose only point is to dump an already opened can of beans onto a stark white plate
•	Red kidney beans on a white plate.
•	Uh, a plate of beans. Like this: http://pinterest.com/pin/323485185707226226/
•	A chunky earthenware plate (maybe blue?), covered in refried pinto beans. The loose kind with liquid & whole beans like you might get at Chipotle, rather than the mushy kind that comes in a can.
•	That song.
•	Nothing?
•	White plate with a pile of Heinz Baked Beans
•	Blue dinner plate, baked beans.
•	A plate with some beans on it
•	Some Heinz beans with full English breakfast, and a bunch of MeFites arguing about it
•	baked beans
•	Green beans on a china plate.
•	It's just beans, but I am sure somebody will have bright ideas about it.
•	ceramic plate of pinto beans
•	Fava beans
•	... a plate of beans
•	A group of people sitting around a plate each peering at one of the many beans on the plate. They're definitely baked beans.
•	Baked beans
•	A plate of baked beans
•	i have never enjoyed this in-joke and don't have a particular picture in mind.
•	A silver platter holding three perfectly formed dried pinto beans.
•	Someone overthinking something.
•	A literal plate with beans on it.
•	A white plate overflowing with baked beans.
•	A giant platter topped with a pyramid-like mass of baked beans with one bean teetering at the top about to roll off.
•	Red fiestaware plate, low mound of pinto beans
•	Repo Man generic TV Dinner labelled Plate O Beans
•	An anxious person sitting at a table looking at a plate of beans but not eating them because he is overthinking it.
•	Someone thinking too hard
•	A plate of light kidney beans stacked in a roughly pyramid shape.
•	A plate. With beans on it. BBQ beans. The plate is blue.
•	A literal smooshy plate of beans.
•	A plate of black beans
•	About fifty baked beans, in sauce, on a white china plate, glistening, viewed from a 45 degree angle.
•	a white plate, a bunch of baked beans, steaming. (Is that too much?)
•	Someone very delicately placing a kidney bean onto a white plate with a pile of kidney beans on it, as if arranging them artfully.
•	A yellow plate with a mound of refried beans.
•	RepoMan
•	A white ceramic plate with a sloppy thin layer of those canned baked beans with the runny brown juice.
•	a plate of baked beans
•	MJADRA.
•	A plate of beans.
•	A plate with a small portion of Heinz baked beans being puzzled over
•	An actual plate of beans, and MeFites staring at it, overthinking it.
•	"A plate full of plain, dry beans. Kidney beans, probably, or pintos, perfect for counting, sorting, rearranging, etc.
•	"
•	The worst plate of brown "Boston" baked beans imaginable. Like something Barf would have served up on You Can't Do that on Television.
•	A plate. With beans.
•	A generous helping of refried beans.
•	white rigid paper plate full of Van Kamp's pork & beans.
•	A person hunched over a plate of baked beans, brows furrowed, attempting to analyze each and every element of that plate of baked beans.
•	Imagine a spoon smashing into a face.  Forever.
•	A plate. Beans. The beans are on the plate, which is under the beans. Both the beans and the plate are there. There is a long history of "hustle" and "bustle." Beans are leguminous seeds of plants in the Fabaceae family, wheras plates are flat ceramic, plastic, metal, or paper discs typically intended to be covered in food, such as beans, which are leguminous seeds of plants in the Fabaceae family.  Beans may be eaten raw, steamed, boiled, baked, or fried, depending on the variety of beans in question and are often put on flat ceramic, wooden, plastic, ceramic, plastic, paper, metal, or styrofoam discs referred to in English, the principle language of England, the USA, Canada, Australia, Belize, Singapore and England, as plates, which are covered in the beans that are on the plates.  Plates full of beans. Beans. Plates. Bean. Plate. BEANPLATING.
•	a snapshot of the blue in its entirety
•	I don't - my brain doesn't work like that.
•	A steaming pile of Heinz's best.
•	A large white platter of canned baked beans, kind of stacked up in a heap with sauce pooling at the bottom and a little dripping off the side. Also a lot of people arguing about minutiae.
•	I imagine an actual plate of beans being lorded over by a cranky old white guy, carefully categorizing each bean.
•	A plate, with beans on it.
•	A tin plate filled with Van de Camps pork and beans with the oozing pink sauce.
•	a person desperately and with the best of intentions trying to figure out how to make boring beans even slightly better
•	A white round plate full of baked beans and sauce.
•	Sitting at the computer and trying to come up with something.
•	Way overthinking things
•	"Aren't we overthinking this?
•	A white plate. With baked beans."
•	a white plate, salad plate sized, with a thin layer of canned baked beans.
•	A white china plate with red kidney beans piled on it
•	a large heap of black-eyed peas, for some reason
•	pork 'n' beans in a shallow bowl, uncooked, straight from the can
•	A person, head in hands, staring down with great intensity and consternation at a plate of pork and beans. The rim of the plate is flat, BTW.
•	An unadorned white ceramic plate with a heaping of green beans (aka string beans). They have been washed and boiled to give a nice crunch but are otherwise totally unaltered from their state in the fresh produce aisle of the supermarket.
•	Baked beans on a pewter plate
•	"A small dish of baked beans.  The dish appears to be pale, possibly metallic, and has a raised lip, like a shallow bowl.
•	Also that one Oglaf comic about the Overthinking trap that I can't dig up a hyperlink for because I am not Googling for Oglaf at work."
•	A heaping plate of kidney beans straight from the can.
•	Complete over analyzation of what should be a straightforward discussion of a simple topic. I also have a mental image of the three stooges staring at a plate of beans on a table waiting for it to do something.
•	A tired cliche puddle
•	A plate of beans
•	Not refried beans. Individual beans.
•	A plate of pinto beans.
•	black eyed peas
•	"some kind of overly dramatic situation.
•	And a huge overflowing plate of messy watery beans"
•	A bunch of MeFites overthinking something.
•	A plate with jumping beans similar to those in the older Bugs Bunny cartoons
•	"A plate of bright orange baked beans on a white china plate.
•	(as in British style Heinz baked beans in tomato sauce)."
•	Delicate white bone china, my mom's baked beans hot from the oven with a tiny bit of crisp bacon.
•	A plate with a pile of brown baked beans.
•	A plate of beans.
•	melamine or ceramic dish of refried beans with melted cheese on top like you get in many mexican restaurants
•	cowboys with no cattle but they do have some plates and some beans and they're sitting around a campfire arguing about some nonsense while they eat their plates of beans
•	A mild steel plate 3/8" thick 4" wide and 12" long, suspended from a steel frame structure 40 stories in the air, welded to the top of a girder. An iron worker two stories up looks down on it from above holding their empty tupperware container.  Their side of buttery green beans has fallen and now lies splattered on the plate.
•	Once-fine but outdated 70s-ish china with a border around the edge and a whole bunch of from-a-can style baked beans dead center.
•	A seance but with a plate of beans instead of the crystal ball.
•	black beans on white plate
•	A molehill on a mountain
•	A tin plate piled high with baked beans.
•	Ironically, I have never given it much thought...
•	The pancake bunny, but with a white plate of beans on its head
•	hairsplitting
•	Someone pouring a can of Heinz baked beans onto a plate and then slowly flipping the beans over, one by one.
•	Beans, on a plate, being counted.
•	Someone constantly chopping up a plate of beans with a knife and fork.
•	A circular white plate piled high with baked beans.
•	A stockphoto-esque image of someone puzzling over a plate of beans, hand on their chin with a furrowed brow. Maybe there's a big goofy question mark over the plate of beans.
•	Weirdly, I think of those old Popeye cartoons where he cracks open a can of spinach, only its a can of beans.  A plate is nowhere in my mental picture.  And yeah, I know what the colloquialism actually means, but the resulting image is always Popeye.
•	A smug in-group
•	"Many years had elapsed during which nothing of Combray, save what was comprised in the theatre and the drama of my going to bed there, had any existence for me, when one day in winter, on my return home, my mother, seeing that I was cold, offered me some tea, a thing I did not ordinarily take. I declined at first, and then, for no particular reason, changed my mind. She sent for one of those flat round things covered in beans, called ""a plate of beans"", or sometimes a ""platter of beans"". And soon, mechanically, dispirited after a dreary day with the prospect of a depressing morrow, I raised to my lips a spoonful of the tea in which I had soaked a morsel of the beans. No sooner had the warm liquid mixed with the beans touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory - this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the beans, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could, no, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?
•	I drink a second mouthful, in which I find nothing more than in the first, then a third, which gives me rather less than the second. It is time to stop; the potion is losing it magic. It is plain that the truth I am seeking lies not in the cup but in myself. The drink has called it into being, but does not know it, and can only repeat indefinitely, with a progressive diminution of strength, the same message which I cannot interpret, though I hope at least to be able to call it forth again and to find it there presently, intact and at my disposal, for my final enlightenment. I put down the cup and examine my own mind. It alone can discover the truth. But how: What an abyss of uncertainty, whenever the mind feels overtaken by itself; when it, the seeker, is at the same time the dark region through which it must go seeking and where all its equipment will avail it nothing. Seek? More than that: create. It is face to face with something which does not yet exist, to which it alone can give reality and substance, which it alone can bring into the light of day.
•	And I begin to ask myself what it could have been, this unremembered state which brought with it no logical proof, but the indisputable evidence, of its felicity, its reality, and in whose presence other states of consciousness melted and vanished. I decide to attempt to make it reappear. I retrace my thoughts to the moment at which I drank the first spoonful of tea. I rediscover the same state, illuminated by no fresh light. I ask my mind to make one further effort, to bring back once more the fleeting sensation. And so that nothing may interrupt it in its course I shut out every obstacle, every extraneous idea, I stop my ears and inhibit all attention against the sound from the next room. And then, feeling that my mind is tiring itself without having any success to report, I compel it for a change to enjoy the distraction which I have just denied it, to think of other things, to rest refresh itself before making a final effort. And then for the second time I clear an empty space in front of it; I place in position before my mind's eye the still recent taste of that first mouthful, and I feel something start within me, something that leaves its resting-place and attempts to rise, something that has been embedded like an anchor at a great depth; I do not know yet what it is, but I can feel it mounting slowly; I can measure the resistance, I can hear the echo of great spaces traversed.
•	Undoubtedly what is thus palpitating in the depths of my being must be the image, the visual memory which, being linked to that taste, is trying to follow it into my conscious mind. But its struggles are too far off, too confused and chaotic; scarcely can I perceive the neutral glow into which the elusive whirling medley of stirred-up colours is fused, and I cannot distinguish its form, cannot invite it, as the one possible interpreter, to translate for me the evidence of its contemporary, its inseparable paramour, the taste, cannot ask it to inform me what special circumstance is in question, from what period in my past life.
•	Will it ultimately reach the clear surface of my consciousness, this memory, this old, dead moment which the magnetism of an identical moment has traveled so far to importune, to disturb, to raise up out of the very depths of my being? I cannot tell. Now I feel nothing; it has stopped, has perhaps sunk back into its darkness, from which who can say whether it will ever rise again? Ten times over I must essay the task, must lean down over the abyss. And each time the cowardice that deters us from every difficult task, every important enterprise, has urged me to leave the thing alone, to drink my tea and eat my beans and to think merely of the worries of to-day and my hopes for to-morrow, which can be brooded over painlessly.
•	And suddenly the memory revealed itself. The taste was that of the little plate of beans which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane. The sight of the little plate of beans had recalled nothing to my mind before I tasted it; perhaps because I had so often seen such things in the meantime, without tasting them, on the trays in bean-cooks' windows, that their image had dissociated itself from those Combray days to take its place among others more recent; perhaps because of those memories, so long abandoned and put out of mind, nothing now survived, everything was scattered; the shapes of things, including that of the little kidney shaped beans, so richly sensual under its severe, religious folds, were either obliterated or had been so long dormant as to have lost the power of expansion which would have allowed them to resume their place in my consciousness. But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring, more unsubstantial, more persistent, more faithful, remain poised a long time, like souls, remembering, waiting, hoping, amid the ruins of all the rest; and bear unflinchingly, in the tiny and almost impalpable drop of their essence, the vast structure of recollection.
•	And as soon as I had recognized the taste of the plate of beans soaked in her decoction of lime-blossom which my aunt used to give me (although I did not yet know and must long postpone the discovery of why this memory made me so happy) immediately the old grey house upon the street, where her room was, rose up like a stage set to attach itself to the little pavilion opening on to the garden which had been built out behind it for my parents (the isolated segment which until that moment had been all that I could see); and with the house the town, from morning to night and in all weathers, the Square where I used to be sent before lunch, the streets along which I used to run errands, the country roads we took when it was fine. And as in the game wherein the Japanese amuse themselves by filling a porcelain bowl with water and steeping in it little pieces of paper which until then are without character or form, but, the moment they become wet, stretch and twist and take on colour and distinctive shape, become flowers or houses or people, solid and recognizable, so in that moment all the flowers in our garden and in M. Swann's park, and the water-lilies on the Vivonne and the good folk of the village and their little dwellings and the parish church and the whole of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens alike, from my cup of tea. Later I had gas.
•	"
•	A bad idea. Who eats beans on a plate? Beans and other round food should be eaten in bowls.
•	Somebody massively overthinking something.
•	a plate of baked beans
•	Baked beans, usually.
•	Not a plate of beans . . . this is rather embarrassing, but the image that comes to my mind is someone sitting on the pot contemplating their navel.
•	A pixel art drawing of a white plate with a small pile of brown beans on top.
•	A giant plate with various types of dried beans that someone is trying to sort through - like Cinderella sorting beans out of the pebbles and rubble ;)
•	unappetizing baked beans inartfully plopped onto a white ceramic plate
•	a common white plate with black beans.
•	Most of everything is a whole bunch o' bean plating.
•	Baked beans on a blue plate.
•	Face palm picard
•	a spread-out smear of baked beans.  on a yellow plate.
•	A plate with beans on it. Not a plate made of beans. The beans are delicious smoked brown beans.
•	A white circular plate of kidney beans piled about 3 inches high
•	Cartoon Planet used to have a stop-motion clip of baked beans kind of 'dancing' around on a plate - this is what I picture
•	A plate of baked beans
•	That dog from the Bush's Bean commercials going "Roll that beautiful bean footage."
•	A sad pate of tepid baked beans from a can, on a spare kitchen table in a room lit by one lightbulb and someone staring at it wondering how their life got so sad.
•	Huh?
•	a plate with beans
•	black beans, white plastic plate
•	No image, just the text of past references to "a plate of beans."
•	A flat ceramic eating vessel covered with orange cylindrical edible items in a sweet tomato sauce, made by Heinz.
•	A nit picky pedant who's rules-lawyering an innocuous and harmless statement.
•	A literal plate of baked kidney beans. It's the plate itself that requires the contemplation.
•	A white plate with baked beans stacked on it.
•	Casablanca, with more infighting.
•	Flatulence.
•	A bunch of pinto beans on a plain white diner plate.
•	Someone staring at a plate of beans intently. Too intently.
•	metal plate, black beans
•	a white plate with pinto beans
•	Reddish baked beans on a ceramic plate, blue or green. One of those diner plates with a few concentric raised rings as part of the ceramic shape.
•	An eating saucer with food on it.
•	Baked beans. On toast.
•	English Breakfast
•	"A plain white ceramic plate with a medium sized pile of pinto beans (from a can, but rinsed first), seasoned visibly with Borsari Seasoning Salt (original blend).
•	Also there might be something small and well hidden in the pile of beans, but fuck if I can find it. Also I do not work for Borsari Foods, just a fan."
•	A circular white plate with white beans in tomato sauce.
•	Hyper-intellectualized defensiveness.
•	a plate of beans
•	A white plate with a congealed mass of red kidney beans and syrup.
•	A white plate of baked beans in tomato sauce.
•	A pile of black beans on a white plate
•	A round plate overflowing with baked beans. (I know what it actually means but that's my mental image.)
•	an ordinary plate of beans that is being stared at intently.
•	Baked beans (ie Boston baked beans)
•	Someone making a simple situation needlessly complicated by overthinking minor details.
•	literally a plate of beans
•	A plate of beans.
•	Endless circular arguing
•	uh....plate with black beans on it?
•	A white ceramic plate covered with a single layer of baked beans from a can.
•	A white china plate of hot, steaming pinto beans. One simple spoon.
•	This gif: http://www.gifbin.com/reverse/983819
•	I could totally overthink this one...
•	A plate of fucking cold baked beans, swimming in bright orange sauce. I really hate baked beans. I wish it would stop.
•	Humphrey Bogart
•	baked beans on a white plate, steaming slightly
•	A plate of beans
•	kidney beans
•	a plate of beans
•	Baked beans on a white dinner plate
•	B&M Baked Beans
•	A dinner plate full of baked beans
•	I don't picture anything. I'm not a visual thinker.
•	Plate of brown baked beans.
•	A plate of beans
•	Baked beans
•	english breakfast
•	"The little mess-of-beans-shaped cover of the bean pot in the board game ""Don;t Spill the Beans.""
•	Picture here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/126030489543487502/"
•	a plate of (baked) beans
•	Refried beans on a white plate
•	A circular white ceramic plate with baked beans thereupon.
•	Someone who is paralysed by their own overanalysis of something.
•	White plate, pile of red beans (kidney beans?)
•	A plate of beans.
•	A plate of spaghetti.
•	Saucer-sized silver plate, with approximately 250mL of baked beans in molasses (as from a can).
•	feces pouring out of one's eyes
•	I picture someone dissecting, examining, or arranging a plate of cooked bright green beans. They're probably soy beans given the color.
•	A literal plate of dried beans, rolling all over the place
•	A literal plate of beans, piled with vegetarian beans in tomato sauce.
•	A plate of pinto beans
•	Beans on toast with a man staring fixedly at it.
•	Literal plate of beans, probably pinto.
•	A dinner plate with one serving of baked beans on it, such that the individual beans are mostly spread out and not piled on each other
•	A plate of baked beans, either British or New England style
•	Kidney beans on a white plate. Maybe 2 cups worth.
•	A dinner plate, with beans on it.
•	A plate of baked pinto beans.
•	A plate of beans. Not in on the joke.
•	A white china dinner plate.  There's a heap of mixed beans in the middle.  Not sure of the type, but they're mostly earth-tones in terms of colour.  The heap is dangerously high, and they may spill if the plate is jostled.
•	"A literal plate of beans
•	"
•	Green plastic camping plate with beans heated in the can over a campfire on it
•	Big silver platter loaded with brown beans in sauce
•	A plate with pinto beans filling it to the edges.
•	Brown beans on a plate, covered in tomato sauce.
•	A plate. Of beans.
•	An enormous plate of beans with many mefites around it debating what it’s for.
•	someone with a lot of time on their hands
•	Someone overthinking something
•	A big old sloppy plate of canned baked beans.
•	a trivial matter
•	A big platter of fava beans, more than a normal person could eat
•	A molehill.
•	A plate, piled high with beans, being scrutinized by a cluster of mefites with green eyeshades.
•	a white plate filled with (american) baked beans
•	Someone overthinking something
•	I can't visualize.
•	A plate with beans on it.
•	A confused person.
•	A plate of baked beans, or possibly beans cooked in lard, definitely a darkish brown. The plate is dark blue, some kind of ceramic, sized like a traditional dinner plate (not the big plates you get today), and quite full of beans.
•	A white dinner plate with Boston baked beans in too much sauce.
•	One 14-oz. can Goya black beans, drained, on a cheap thin ceramic plate that for years has only been rinsed, not washed with soap.
•	a can of beans on a white china plate
•	A silver plate with heinz baked beans with runny sauce
•	A white plate with baked beans on it.
•	Red kidney beans on a plate.
•	a tin plate full of pinto beans.
•	a plate of beans
•	A plate of baked beans that is being stared at intently.
•	A literal salad plate with black beans. I only think this way because meetups often take pictures of each attendant overthinking said plate.
•	A long, involved, fiddly discussion about something that doesn't warrant even close to that much attention, especially as a sidebar to the actual topic of the thread.
•	Pedants, everywhere.
•	Overthinking, over analyzing
•	A plate piled with baked beans as it would appear on the Simpsons.
•	Someone intently staring at a plate of beans, close-up.
•	Someone philosophizing over a plate of pintos and onions.
•	plate. beans. what's to say?
•	a white plate. with kidney beans on it.
•	a ceramic plate filled with beans, that, for some reason, is about to collapse
•	Overthinking something. But I also picture the literal plate of beans and it looks like a big, runny spoonful dished up by Cookie around a trail drive campfire.
•	A white dinner-sized plate with a blue rim (like a diner plate) with a pile of baked red kidney beans on it and nothing else.
•	Somebody overthinking something that should be simple.
•	A rough drawing of a white plate with a heap of steaming black beans on top.
•	Lots of question marks appearing around their head whle they confuse themselves with overthinking.
•	A white plate with a pile of kidney beans.
•	nothing
•	Black beans on a white plate
•	Someone staring intently at a small plate of baked beans, over thinking them, like in photos we've taken at some meetups I've attended.
•	White plate, black/brown beans.
•	A dinner plate with a single layer of black beans with a bit of their cooking liquid pooled underneath. Not refried or mashed.
•	paper plate with individual baked beans on it. kinda slimy.
•	Pinto beans covering a dinner plate.
•	Olive green plastic plate, pile of cooked but unseasoned kidney beans
•	I'm probably overthinking this, but you've got to have a nice white china plate, about 60 beans, all brown and coated with a layer of whatever the juice/sauce that usually comes with beans is.  Each bean is about the size of a dime, and they are somewhat uniformly distributed.  The beans themselves are all completely pill shaped and there are no deformities present.
•	A plate of beans
•	"A bunch of people sitting around a round table, arguing. The center of the table is occupied by a sizable plate of streaming beans.
•	There is much gesticulating. "
•	That interminable chapter in "On Walden Pond".
•	"A dinner plate piled with beans. Someone picks at it and goes ""how many beans are in this congealed sauce?""
•	Another someone goes, ""is it not technically a legume?""
•	In short: I don't like beans."
•	A can of beans (baked bbq), on a plate
•	a plate with a pile of kidney beans.
•	A plate of beans, with the beans arranged into a large question mark the size of the plate.
•	a plate of beans
•	Someone over thinking something.
•	plate of beans
•	A plate of Lima  beans.
•	The plate is pale in colour. The beans are probably brown. There is not background to the image of the plate of beans. There are enough beans on the plate that I can barely see the back rim.
•	1 plain white salad plate with beans in bean juice.
•	A plate of pinto beans (frijul de la olla)
•	earthenware plate.  white beans.  rosemary.
•	a plate of baked beans
•	Forrowed brows.
•	Beans on a plate
•	Nasty Boston-style beans just oozing over a cracked plate that a mysterious bystander is poking with a fork.
•	a cartoon scribble over their head
•	Somebody sitting at a table staring at a plate of beans and looking like they're thinking "This again?"
•	A white plate with a small pile of baked beans, the pile is slowly collapsing and the sauce is going everywhere.
•	An extremely interesting pile of individual pinto beans. Each one is delicious all by itself. I could spend hours eating the beans, and still hours more staring at the plate.
•	It's messy, and you can poke around without doing yourself any favors.
•	someone sobbing gently while saying "well actually"
•	A plate of beans aging, rapidly.
•	Pedantry.
•	lots of unnecessary elaboration of a topic
•	a white china plate with a can of baked beans poured out on it.
•	A white plate of lightly sauced pinto beans
•	A plate of pork and beans but I try not to overthink it.
•	English breakfast.
•	A white dish with baked beans on it.
•	White dinner plate with a large mound of boiled kidney beans in the middle
•	overthinking it, friends
•	people arguing semantics or overthinking it
•	Thinking about things too much
•	A paper plate with baked beans on it
•	"Mostly this: http://im.hunt.in/cg/jammu/City-Guide/Rajma1.jpg
•	Sometimes with rice, sometimes with bread, but never both. And never. ever. with waffles. Waffles suck."
•	A literal plate of literal beans
•	A plate with a single layer of cooked black beans.
•	Overthinking
•	Someone vastly overthinking a simple situation
•	a plate of baked beans
•	White plate, baked beans, overthinking
•	A brain working furiously
•	something unexceptional in which an exceptional amount of thought is invested
•	Pinto beans, probably from a can, on a white china plate.  May not even be warmed up.
•	Heinz Beans on brown toast
•	A plate of beans
•	A plate of beans
•	A nice plate of beans on toast. I know what they mean, of course, when talking about beanplating, but I still picture the beans and toast. Then I want beans and toast. It's a terrible affliction, really.
•	four bearded men and two women with horn-rimmed glasses standing in a circle around a plate of uncooked Bush's baked beans, staring at it intently, murmuring to one another
•	a blue plate with heinz beans on it.
•	baked beans. on a regular plate.
•	A round white plate, with a small pile of black beans, sauce oozing around them.
•	A plate of black beans
•	a person staring straight down at a dinner plate covered in beans.
•	one of those speckled blue enamel plates full of pork 'n' beans with sliced hot dogs and a campfire in the background
•	A white china plate like from a diner, with refried beans on it
•	Jessamyn
•	a plate with the remains of canned kidney beans on it
•	umm a plate of baked beans, like proper Heinz ones from Australia not the rubbish ones you have in the US
•	A plate of canned baked beans with the slimy little bit of bacon.
•	standard plastic or porcelain plate with a generous scoop or two of baked beans.
•	a paper plate with a scoop of baked beans in the middle
•	dry pinto beans
•	Pinto beans, one layer
•	"The Plate Of Beans graphic made by Eric Osterman from the game Glitch. I mean, I know it's a homage to Metafilter but it's an actual picture:
•	http://www.joshmillard.com/2011/10/27/overthanking-a-plate-of-injokes/"
•	a plate of beans
•	heinz beans
•	A pile of pinto beans on a battered tin plate
•	"LOL, it's the ""plane on a treadmill/Dreams are where I'm a viking"" ordeal of 0X all over again.
•	It is a state of mind?
•	It is a place that exists, but is actually a thing?"
•	A plate of beans.
•	it's like staring in an empty void of nerdery
•	A plate of Bush's baked beans.
•	Someone actually counting beans
•	Black beans on a white plate
•	white plate, overflowing with kidney beans
•	A literal plate of beans.
•	white plate, 5 pinto beans
•	A real white plate with black beans.
•	um
•	Someone looking quizzically at a plate of beans, unaware that her or his forehead is scrunching up.
•	The beans I just ate last night.
•	A white plate with baked beans on it.
•	a plate of beans of course
•	A white plate, piled high with pale green lima beans.
•	Pinto beans (and some bean juice) on a big white plate.
•	A plate of beans
•	A Mexican desayuno (breakfast).
•	a plate of beans
•	"Are you asking me to beanplate a plate of beans?
•	A white plate with a pile of baked beans on it.  Was this question meant literally?"
•	a plate with sauteed black beans on it, somewhat steamy
•	a white dinner plate with brown pinto beans on it
•	an overly complicated, exhaustively examined tempest of homeopathically brewed tea in a micron-sized cup.