By 1850, practically every Englishman knew that any person “full of beans” was bursting with energy. Without solid evidence to back the belief, every veteran horseman was sure that beans constituted a unique kind of food. An animal regularly fed on them, said tradition, was noticeably frisky and energetic. Small wonder that any lively two-legged creature seeming to have boundless energy was compared with the horse that was full of pep. Regardless of actual diet, any unusually zestful person was described as being “full of beans”.