Affordability Of Lentils & Co.

A natural way to veganism.

Corona, as bad as it is has one good aspect to it. People are cooking their own food again and thankfully using less and less animal protein for it. Not necessarily out of conviction but more because of price. Meat is too expensive when jobs are not secure anymore or have already been lost.

The eternal questions posed to us vegans tend to be about our source of adequate protein. Yes, we do have those and contrary to popular opinion, our source has a high percentage of protein. Pulses or beans, although I tend to think of beans as the long stalk green beans which they aren't.

Lentils, chickpeas, black beans or white beans are all part of the pulses that we vegans live on and love. They are so tasty even when just eaten with oil, salt and pepper but just as nice as hummus, part of a burger or a scrumptious lentil curry.

Pulses can be bought as dry beans or canned and are extremely cheap. In the beginning we bought the canned lot as it was less fuss but now we buy the dried beans and batch cook them ourselves.

So easy; Apart from lentil or mung beans ( they can be used straight away without soaking them overnight ) I soak 500 g of dried black beans ( our favourite at the moment ) overnight and then in the morning cook them in water with a dash of salt for an hour. Once they are cooled, I put them into a Tupperware container and straight into the fridge. This 500 g portion will provide us with at least 4 salads as part of Bob's lunch and 2 stir-fries for me. The beauty is that they are full of protein and have lots of fiber to feed our inner microcosm ie. our gut. Did I mention that 500 g of dried chickpeas / black beans or lentils costs anywhere from 1,5 to 3 euros? Can you buy meat for 6 meals for that price?

The best of it is how healthy pulses are for us and how less harmful the growing of them is for our planet and climate...

Biggi