Tryna start bringing lunch into the office instead of buying a sandwich every day and I figure I might as well try to make it vegan if I can

Death to America

    • Frank [he/him, he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      I'm looking at some stew recipes and they're mostly 30m-1hr of cook time.

        • StewartCopelandsDad [he/him]
          ·
          edit-2
          2 years ago

          Most beans do need to soak overnight but you can do them in an instant pot or pressure cooker for 40 minutes, no soak required. Lentils are smaller so less cooking required.

          • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
            ·
            edit-2
            2 years ago

            from what I'm reading it's less that they're smaller and more that they don't have nearly as many lectins in them so cooking them without a soak is usually sufficient to avoid toxicity issues

            edit: anyone about to read this comment chain and think "oh I don't need to soak my beans thanks debate bro" the FDA literally recommends a 5+ hour soak for raw kidney beans, specifically in their manual about food borne illness. Other beans you might be able to get away with because they have much lower lectin content. Kidney beans will have literally 3-120 times as much as any other bean. Even fully cooked kidney beans have lectin content comparable to uncooked lentils.

            Studies done by British scientists suggest that beans should be soaked in water for at least 5 hours, the water poured away, and the beans boiled in fresh water for at least 30 minutes

            https://www.fda.gov/media/83271/download

            • StewartCopelandsDad [he/him]
              ·
              2 years ago

              oh forgot about that. I see some sources saying lectin is deactivated after like ten minutes of boiling, which is well below cook time of most beans, but I also see sources warning about undercooked beans causing poisoning. Kidney beans boiled for 10m would be practically inedible I think, someone should take one for the team and see if that ten minute figure is accurate.

              Regardless, cook them until they're soft and you'll be fine

              • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
                ·
                2 years ago

                I think it's dependent on the amount of lectins, kidney beans have like 100+ times as much as lentils so I would definitely not trust them all to break down in 10 minutes unless maybe via pressure cooking

                • StewartCopelandsDad [he/him]
                  ·
                  2 years ago

                  this source says 15m for kidney beans. this one shows 10m for soybeans, which may be where sites like this get stuff like "Dried [unspecified] beans have to be soaked and then boiled for at least ten minutes." none of this seems worth caring about because lectins are destroyed way before the beans are soft enough to eat

                  • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
                    ·
                    2 years ago

                    all of that is specifically after pre-soaking the beans, none of that is saying "the lectin is deactivated after x minutes" without specifically mentioning pre-soaking them OR pressure cooking them (which utilizes much higher temperatures than boiling).

                    it's worth caring about so that someone doesn't misread, cook their unsoaked beans for 30-60 minutes thinking they're fine, and then shit themselves to death (or at least have a really unpleasant time)

                    people can and do get food poisoning from eating undercooked beans so it's not like cooking long enough for them to be palatable is sufficient, people soak them for a reason

        • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
          ·
          2 years ago

          most legumes have lectins, which are proteins which can bind to carbohydrates and cause a lot of various issues if ingested. Kidney beans in particular have a shitload compared to lentils

          The FDA suggests that while legumes like kidney beans contain between 20,000 and 70,000 hau (hau being the unit of toxic measure), raw lentils have a far lower amount of lectin that is somewhere between 513 and 617 hau. source

          so kidney beans are soaked for a long period of time to cut down on the cooking time necessary to break all that down

          soy beans apparently have the same issue and also need to be soaked for like 8+ hours before being cooked

        • Frank [he/him, he/him]
          ·
          2 years ago

          Yeah I don't think Lentils are nearly as hard core as beans. I used to put red lentils in to my rice cooker alongside the rice and they'd cook in about the same amount of time.

        • MattsAlt [comrade/them]
          ·
          2 years ago

          You just soak beans overnight or there's a few hours method where you boil. For lentils, you'll be under an hour unless you're cooking a monster amount

    • AmericaDelendeEst [any]
      ·
      2 years ago

      just make sure you're cooking them because they have the same toxins in them as other beans (but not as much as like kidney beans, like 40x less) that can cause diarrhea and nausea, but I think it's enough to just cook them for like 20 minutes

    • Nephron [he/him]
      ·
      2 years ago

      You can throw dry split red lentils into a rice cooker with your rice and it will cook at the same time. Add veg stock instead of water for more taste