"Just add beans, pulses and lentils"

[Hagrod]

I am sick of hearing this advice given when food poverty is being discussed!

"Just add beans, pulses and lentils to all your meals, they will give you the protein you need to spread expensive meat and fish further [ad infinitum]."

Like many other people, I do not have packets of beans, pulses and lentils nestled at the back of my cupboards just waiting for the day I am so starving I need to add them to a bowl of soup. I would have to go out and buy them, I assume they are not given away for free.

I just think it's such a cliched piece of advice that has been meted out to 'the peasants' for decades now and I wish they'd stop it.

Buryingacorns
Or.... you soak them. No energy cost to have something sat in a bowl of water

Exactly!

I'm nowhere near some of the wealth suggested here, but I stay, because I find so much of the advice useful.

If you hate lentils, use beans; if you hate beans, use pulses (very many varieties).

And as adults, surely you know to eat the meat and spit out the bones. Just take the advice that works for you and leave the rest.

Red lentils are just over a quid for 500g and I can get about three litres of lentil and bacon soup out of it. Luckily the kids like it or it would be no help to me

Of course you do. It's a terrible debilitating condition well known to be caused by visual stimuli.

I can assure you that adding red lentils to a mince dish is an excellent way to stretch it further. As red lentils break down You wouldn't even notice they were there.

I regularly make Nigella's Rapid Ragu with minced lamb and red lentils, and it is delicious.

And, yes, I always have red lentils in the cupboard. It is as much of a store cupboard staple as a tin of tomatoes.

Really? I've seen people advise that heating one room is a mistake and its cheaper to maintain the whole property at the same temperature (which can be true for certain types of building, but not usually the building quality in the UK).

I've seen enough questions about fuel economy that issuing standard sets of advice are worth sharing. Stuff I assumed everyone knew but probably only knew because I grew up poor and without anything resembling central heating.

Lots of people do keep them in the cupboard and cook with them daily... I don't really get your point. They are a major component of many people's diets. And they are cheap and healthy.

If you have a house prone to damp then not heating the house can cause expensive maintenance bills. This is true and I saw my sister becoming unstuck with this.
But in general it is pretty obvious advice.

Meh I grew up in a place where it's normal to eat pulses several times a week, as your main meal.

I don't believe in using pulses to make meat go further. First, the texture and taste are different. Second, tinned varieties tend to taste awful, and the dried varieties need long cooking (not lentils but chickpeas and beans do- using up a lot of energy). Third, the proteins you get from pulses come with a lot of carbs and are not as easy to absorb as the ones from animals sources.

I would say if you want to eat pulses, please do, I do several times a week and love them. But if you want cheap protein you're better off having eggs and tinned fish IMO.

Well I don't eat meat but there's no point me popping up on threads where people recommend when to pickup discount meat going "urgh this is useless advice".

I was sent a lentil recipe recently which fed all of us for more than 3 meals, it probably cost about £3 tops. That sort of thing is a game changer if you can tolerate/enjoy pulses.

Besides adding beans or lentils I make dumplings or cobblers to add to cheap stews. I buy the cheapest cuts of meat and put them in the slow cooker with onion, carrots, parsnips etc, a tin of lentils, water and stock cube. Absolutely delicious 😋

But I don’t think the advice is aimed at people who aren't able to buy meat in the first place. It's aimed at people who could previously afford mince, but are now struggling to afford it with the increase in food prices. For those people, having a way to bulk out their meat is useful.

For people who were in food poverty to start with, it's obviously not useful advice.

Carrot and parsnip soup is a favourite here, quick and easy to make, don’t bother with the cream.
www.olivemagazine.com/recipes/vegetarian/carrot-and-parsnip-soup

I love beans, pulses and lentils but I am unable to eat them due to low fibre and low FODMAP diet for health reasons

Exactly. I would get short shrift on the " cheap meat " threads if I kept popping up to say that mince makes me vomit. If you don't like lentils don't eat them. No need for drama. Millions do.

It doesn't make food "go" further. Its just adding food to food.

I always bill out spag Bol with lentils. It’s a great idea.

*bulk

Yes, exactly!

And all the posters coming on to say they can't tolerate pulses, well this advice is obviously not suitable for you, but that doesn't mean it won't be good advice for someone else!

It doesn't make food "go" further. Its just adding food to food.

It makes your money go further. By adding cheap pulses to expensive mince, you're reducing the price per potion!

What a strange OP!

Whats wrong with 'peasant' food? When I was a kid growing up in the 60s stews always had pearl barley added to bulk up the meat.

Including pulses and lentils into your diet is good for you and your gut (unless like some PPs you have to watch fibre intake) and including them in stews and other meat dishes makes perfect sense on many levels.

I hate the fucking things, they don’t agree with me and I’m not prepared to eat them for weeks in case one day I miraculously develop a tolerance for them. This kind of advice is simplistic, utterly unwanted and unhelpful.

So it's unhelpful advice because YOU happen to dislike them?

Have you considered that many of us DO tolerate pulses and will save money by adding more of them to our diets?

And it's great for the environment

Lllkk I'll pooooo pop pops it y679999000 A sac d
V pop eg
We

@treenu is that the lentils talking? 🤣