Lentils. They are probably one of oldest new foods we are trying to incorporate in our diets.
Lentils are one of the earliest cultivated crops, and by earliest I’m talking thousands of years. Their versatility of being able to incorporate flavors makes them one of the most adaptable legumes on the market worldwide.
Environmentally, lentils are regarded as a climate-friendly protein. As a carbon negative crop, lentils absorb more carbon than they create. In addition, they pull nitrogen from the air and convert it into their own self sustained nutrients and fertilizer for growth. In the long run, the land does not get overworked because the soil is naturally much healthier.
Lentils are inexpensive to cultivate and provide many nutritional benefits.
Between the environmental and nutritional advantages, it is no wonder that the food world (both vegetarian and carnivore) is rediscovering the lentil and adapting recipes. But it is all for naught if you don’t know where to start.
Just because you scoop it out of a bin at your local health food store doesn’t mean it is a lentil. I had a mélange of bags that I thought were all lentils, but then I looked at them all together. They were all pulses but not all lentils.
