Cheapest lentils/dried beans?

[OtherPlans]

Most meals I make are based around dried lentils, chickpeas and butterbeans for budget reasons (became disabled, lost job etc). Does anyone know where is cheapest to buy these (in bulk if that's the cheapest option). I am housebound so it would have to be online or one of the supermarkets that deliver.
It's great to have a big pot of lentils cooked in stock or butterbeans in tomato sauce to dip into.

Many online retailers seem to only sell premium orgasmic beans with prices to match.

Just joining the queue for these!

In mainstream shops I find KTC the cheapest. But I also order from mass caterers like Bidfood for work so sometimes bung an extra 8kg on for my own use (and re-pay, obviously). So if you know anyone in mass catering that may be an option.

We are in the NW and have some fantastic Asian supermarkets nearby. Huge variety and low prices. Bulk bags too so easy to stick up. Do you have any near you?

Check the "ethnic" aisle in the supermarket for cheaper options. I know in my sainsburys the canned chickpeas are cheaper than the ones in the dried goods aisle, it's often the same with canned tomatoes as well.

I buy lentils from a wholesaler in Bolton. Sold by the kilo so you can get as much or as little as you like. They don't have an online store though so no help to op.
Tomato tins are cheapest in Aldi or Lidl at 28p each.

I’m a long-standing eater or pulses. Since the demise of “The Food Weighouse”, I’ve found the “World Food” aisles of big supermarkets to be the cheapest. Also for spices.

What on earth are you on about?

Waitrose and Sainsbury’s - my two ships have a HUGE selection of dried beans etc

That's precisely my point. Huge selection of dried beans in the two most expensive supermarkets in Britain. Poor people, for whom in the rest of the world dried beans are a main source of protein, shop in Aldi, Lidl, B&M Bargains, Farm Foods, Iceland, Poundland and so on, and these places do not - as far as I can tell - sell a single dried bean between them.

Ultimately, in somewhere like Portugal a kilo of dried beans is about half the price of a kilo of chicken legs, whereas here it is nearly double. Whilst I recognise that this says almost as much about the price of chicken legs here as it does about beans, it seems outrageous that at a time where we are being encouraged to eat more plant based foods to stop the world catching fire the price of bloody beans is so hugely out of kilter with the rest of the world.

@SandysMam Very good question about the cost and whether it's worth it. In the rest of Europe it's a no-brainer because the price differential between dried beans and canned ones is much bigger than here, while in places like Brazil or Africa cans barely exist. I suspect that after you factor in the cost of energy to cook them there's maybe not much in it for an occasional bean-eater. However, if like us you're going through several kilos of dried beans a month then 30p here and 45p there mounts up over time. What I tend to do is boil for ten minutes to detoxify and then add to the slow cooker which is on anyway.

I would also say that the environmental impact of manufacturing and then recycling cans, plus the fuel used to transport hydrated beans and the water they are canned in adds up, plus some canned beans come in salted water which may not be to everyone's taste. Also, the cooking water is useful as a base for soups etc.

yes i get the red lentils from Tesco 1 kg bag, better value.

dried beans are the preserve of foreigners, militant lesbian vegan eco-warriors, and the rest of the lunatic fringe

Excuse me?

www.trolley.co.uk/search/?q=lentils&suggested=&page=4

@Otherpeoplesteens

What on earth are you on about?

Waitrose and Sainsbury’s - my two ships have a HUGE selection of dried beans etc

That's precisely my point. Huge selection of dried beans in the two most expensive supermarkets in Britain. Poor people, for whom in the rest of the world dried beans are a main source of protein, shop in Aldi, Lidl, B&M Bargains, Farm Foods, Iceland, Poundland and so on, and these places do not - as far as I can tell - sell a single dried bean between them.

Ultimately, in somewhere like Portugal a kilo of dried beans is about half the price of a kilo of chicken legs, whereas here it is nearly double. Whilst I recognise that this says almost as much about the price of chicken legs here as it does about beans, it seems outrageous that at a time where we are being encouraged to eat more plant based foods to stop the world catching fire the price of bloody beans is so hugely out of kilter with the rest of the world.

@SandysMam Very good question about the cost and whether it's worth it. In the rest of Europe it's a no-brainer because the price differential between dried beans and canned ones is much bigger than here, while in places like Brazil or Africa cans barely exist. I suspect that after you factor in the cost of energy to cook them there's maybe not much in it for an occasional bean-eater. However, if like us you're going through several kilos of dried beans a month then 30p here and 45p there mounts up over time. What I tend to do is boil for ten minutes to detoxify and then add to the slow cooker which is on anyway.

I would also say that the environmental impact of manufacturing and then recycling cans, plus the fuel used to transport hydrated beans and the water they are canned in adds up, plus some canned beans come in salted water which may not be to everyone's taste. Also, the cooking water is useful as a base for soups etc.

Aldi www.aldi.co.uk/red-split-lentils/p/065905298858000

Lidl
www.1offers.co.uk/i/lidl/alesto-red-split-lentils-22695

Iceland
www.iceland.co.uk/p/great-scot-red-split-lentils-500g/24955.html

I take it you don’t frequent these shops

@Marmitemarinaded On the contrary, I do nearly all my shopping at Lidl and Aldi and even pointed out in my first post on this thread that Lidl and Aldi both sell lentils. None of the places I listed sell dried beans though.

@LegoCaltrops It was intended to be a humorous way of saying that there are large parts of UK society whose start point and end point is that dried beans or lentils are simply "not for people like us". The 'meat and potatoes only'' ones like my brother in law, who has actually gone hungry out of stubbornness rather than eat chilli con carne, never mind dhal. Or the ones who ask vegetarians "you'll eat chicken though, won't you?" Or my cousin, who won't touch 'that foreign muck' (pasta).

Not pulses as such, but I regularly make granola and buy nuts. I have found buywholefoodsonline to be expensive. Aldi and Lidl are cheapest, but not if I have to get in the car and drive.

Flicking through a weekend supplement from last week

6 pages of lentil and bean recipes. Centre spread

I buy dried chickpeas, soak them and cook them in the slow cooker, then freeze them in jars. It's nearly as convenient as having cans and a lot cheaper. I'll try to figure out how much cheaper and post it here.

Brazilians cook their black beans in bulk using a pressure cooker. Every household has one. The beans are much cheaper there, for a reason.

In the UK I buy my beans and pulses in Asda.

“dried beans are the preserve of foreigners, militant lesbian vegan eco-warriors, and the rest of the lunatic fringe”

🤣🤣🤣

I’m an English, heterosexual, politically middle of the roader who enjoys spicy lentils with my salmon most Fridays (so, boringly predictable too).
I don’t think I’m a lunatic but that’s for others to judge I suppose.

I ended up buying these as was feeling overwhelmed with choice. superfood-market.com/products/r1212-lentils-brown-whole-uk-recleaned-1-x-25kg
It's a bit depressing that beans and lentils are more expensive here. I started thinking about what's grown in the UK and fell down something of a rabbit hole. Broad beans/fava are one thing and i will probably try some Hodmedods dried broad beans.

Trying to buy dried broad beans in the UK is an especially baffling challenge, from what is already a fairly competitive field, given they are one of the few beans suitable for drying which actually grow here!

I understand most are actually grown as a cover crop, to protect and restore land which is primarily used for something else, and then exported to north Africa or the Middle East. If we're ever going to get serious about climate change, this is the sort of nonsense we'll have to change.

Hodmedod's have, to their credit, been banging the fava bean drum for a while. But the last fava beans I bought from them in October 2014 cost £36 for 25kgs and since they went organic they now want £59.70 for the same amount. Like you say, it's depressing.

Glad it's not just me! It's so weird that we basically export our broad beans (and they're delicious!). Interesting to hear it's grown as a cover crop. I ordered a small quantity of broad beans from hodmedods to change things up. I'll see what they're like.
I will continue to look for very cheap basics.

There's a saying that the best way to build cars in America is to grow them in Idaho. That is, ships sail off to Japan carrying potatoes and return laden with cars. In essence, it means that each country or economic area will have some things in which it is very good at, and others where it is so bad it might as well buy it in from somewhere else. The point is that everyone can win from trade. I have no problem with British broad beans being exported, same as I have no problem with us importing wine from Italy or lettuce or cured meat from Spain.

What I do have a problem with is the uniquely British situation where something halves or quarters in price the moment it crosses the Channel heading out. British-caught monkfish sells for €8 a kilo in a Pingo Doce supermarket in the Algarve rather than the £32 a kilo Sainsbury's in Bolton want for it. British mackerel and sardines are half the price in France as they are here. And you can bet that British dried broad beans are not £1.99 for a 500g in the souk in Cairo. They're only €1 in either branch of Carrefour in Calais.

Right, here is my experiment and the result is: yes it is substantially cheaper.

I soaked 200g dried weight of chickpeas

This expanded to 440g of uncooked chickpeas.

After cooking (~4 hours in slow cooker on low) this fills two jars of approx 230g drained weight each. (In real world conditions you would cook more than this at once)

KTC dried chickpeas are £2 a kilo at Morrisons (and someone posted further up that they are sometimes on offer), therefore you can prepare 5 jars for a pound, plus the pittance the slow cooker costs in electricity.

That’s around 60% of the price of cans, even the cheapest which tend to go for about 35p.

For chickpeas the saving is perhaps minimal as these cans are available very cheaply. But it's definitely worth doing for pulses which are unaccountably expensive in cans such as black beans – these can be over £1 a can.

Good stuff @BlackForestCake

@MrsSkylerWhite oldish thread I know, but can you name any or at least the towns?
Have just discovered lentils :)

@Sh05 can you name the Bolton place? can a member of the public buy from the wholesaler?

Draycott cash n carry
It's on draycott street, on the karlines side just off Blackburn rd.