The heart of Tales of the Beanworld is the Beanworld's ecology. Everyone has an important role to play in it.

The Beans' lives center around the collection of chow, their food. The Beanworld's chow cycle goes like this:

1. Gran'Ma'Pa produces a Sprout-Butt.

2. Mr. Spook and the Chow Sol'jer Army go on a chow raid. They steal chow from the Hoi-Polloi and leave the Sprout-Butt in its place.

3. The Hoi-Polloi ring the Sprout-Butt, and it swells and ripens into a new batch of chow. The Hoi-Polloi use the new chow to replace the chow lost in the chow raid.

4. The stolen chow is taken by the Beans to the Chowdown Pool, where it bubbles and burbles and becomes a nutrient bath for the Beans. Vitamins and nutrients are absorbed through the Beans' heads; trace minerals are soaked through the feet.
   
5. Over time, the chowdown pool accumulates a layer of gunk on its floor. This is made into gunk'l'dunk.

Mr. Spook's trusty Fork sweetens Sprout-Butts. This makes the Sprout-Butt happy, and with the help of the Hoi-Polloi it becomes delicious chow. If a Sprout-Butt bounces too many times, it becomes crabby, and soaking in the chow it becomes is a private, smelly chore.

The balance can get out of whack. This happened in issue 2, Too Much Chow!.

Other parts of the Beanworld ecology are:

• The materials of the Four Realities.

  Slats, Hoops, Twinks and Chips are used in two ways. Professor Garbanzo makes tools. Beanish uses them in his Look·See·Shows.

  Again, this isn't a cycle, since we don't know what happens to old tools and Look·See·Shows.

• The Beans' reproductive cycle.

  This involves Gran'Ma'Pa, the Goofy Service Jerks, reproductive propellant, influences and service stations.