You know several legumes that don’t need cooking, like string beans, garden peas, snap peas, peanuts, and snow peas. The bulk section of my coop also sells chickpea flour, which I believe is just ground uncooked chickpeas. At least I’ve put raw chick peas in a blender and gotten chickpea flour out of it, though not as fine as the store sells, and blending them is loud.

I tried blending other beans that way—I think navy beans—and it wrecked my gastrointestinal track for a day or two. I don’t recommend trying it. I think some beans uncooked are poisonous.

Yet some don’t need cooking. I searched “legumes that don’t need cooking” and found nothing that shared what legumes don’t need cooking. The links I found only said what legumes they thought didn’t need soaking, then their cooking times were tens of minutes, even for pressure cooking, which I find takes four to eight minutes, tops.

Not using grid power leads to learning what doesn’t require cooking. I experiment and discover. For example, when I started sprouting legumes, I found myself eating many legumes that didn’t sprout and didn’t have a problem. I used to not like red lentils since cooking them made them disappear.

Then sometimes I’d find myself hungry but without enough energy to cook legumes. Since I knew some legumes didn’t need cooking, I experimented to find which I could eat just soaked. They include

• Lentils: all, though red lentils work best
• Chickpeas: I can blend them after soaking too
• Mung beans: also my favorite to sprout (Note: I checked with podcast guest and nutrition expert Joel Fuhrman, and sprouting turns beans to greens; still super healthy, but no longer beans)
• Soy beans: (maybe, I think they give me mild indigestion though I haven’t narrowed them as the cause)
• Split peas: green or yellow

I may be skirting danger since some legumes require cooking and many contain anti-nutrients. Still, I’ve eaten these legumes soaked by uncooked for two years or so with no problems and saving a lot of time and money. I’m also one of the healthiest people I’ve met.

Last I checked, dried legumes are my largest food expense. I rely on them. They’re still dirt cheap—that is, you can pay more per pound for potting soil than for dried beans. After soaking, beans are that much less per pound. I keep a few small bowls soaking a few of these legumes all the time to put on salads or treat like cereal, along with grains, many of which don’t need cooking either. I can’t believe I once ate Rice Crispies or other doof disguised as food, except as a kid.

There’s nothing like food that’s cheap, healthy, convenient, fast, and delicious.

I wonder what I’ll discover next from avoiding hurting people by living more joyfully sustainably, avoiding grid power.

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