I cooked a batch of lentils today in the pressure cooker. They were surprisingly soft and in my sample, there was nothing to indicate that they had already exceeded their best by date by almost FOUR years!

When I had previously cooked old beans, they would not completely soften up, and were slightly crunchy, which made me lose all interest in eating the beans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9B2BXOMWbM

The lentils are not quite as old as the beans I showed in the video. They might be about six years old. They still have a good texture and if these had been organic, I would continue eating them. But because they are not organic, I am giving this batch to the wild animals that come up from the woods behind our house.

Non-organic lentils might be sprayed with herbicides as a desiccant to dry them out. The infamous glyphosate is one such herbicide, but is prohibited from being sprayed on organic lentils. So, I am replacing my storage of non-organic with strictly the good stuff.

If you want to prepare for famine, I recommend organic lentils to store as a high-quality plant protein. They require no electricity to store, as they do not have to be refrigerated or frozen, although that could extend their good quality for even longer.

I am now preferring lentils to beans. They store better, cook faster, and in my opinion can taste better and digest easier, and I think are even healthier overall, but both are worth being included as part of our healthy food intake.