In our effort to cut down on our meat consumption I've forum that a piece of fake country rib works great. It makes the beans taste like they have meat in them while the real volume is minimal.
I take some of what I call fake country ribs, the ones cut from the leftovers after a pork butt roast is trimmed, and smoke them. I then cut them in to 2" pieces and freeze them. Throw them in a pot of beans and when they are heated I pull them. They pull into very small pieces and add flavor to the smoke flavor alredy added to the beans.