I once lived in a happy big house with fellow students. We took turns cooking. One of us, an excellent vegetarian cook, whipped up a terrific lentil stew that was so fantastic I had two large bowls. What a tasty meal!
What a night! My roommate had to abandon the room, and two individuals in adjoining rooms were driven downstairs to the living room. I slept only fitfully between blasts. No one spoke to me for 3 days.
It's really a matter of how long/how often you're willing to stick with it. If you eat lentils (or any other bean) long enough, consistently enough, the uh... disturbances in the force will subside.
Anyhow, this is an interesting setup. Rice and beans is a fairly standard South/Central American diet (for the same reason chosen here... high energy, full protein complex, and cheeaappp). This is totally a workable diet, but the moment you start wanting to eat fish/meat, your food expenses will skyrocket. Even if it's just Tilipia (yuck!). Which sucks =/
One thing that the Central/South American and Indian diets add to this baseline set of ingredients is Spices!
These add little difference nutritionally, but make the world of difference in whether this diet seems bland or repetitive; with care they don't need to add a huge cost either, stored well they can be bought in bulk and the cost amortized.
Not only for taste, but a lot of the spices (such as ginger, garlic, and especially asafeotida - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asafoetida) used in india cooking are meant to aid in digestion.
If you want to buy cheap spices you can't go wrong buying whole dried spices (they keep their flavor much longer) from an indian grocery store. I've always found one near where I've lived (mostly east coast, but I did spend a summer in Albuquerque and I found a few there).
>but the moment you start wanting to eat fish/meat, your food expenses will skyrocket.
Not necessarily, though it depends on what you consider skyrocketing. I find that it only adds $2-$3 a day, depending on what your eating and how you buy it. I buy pork chops in bulk for around $2.49/lb. So that means I can add a half pound chop to my dinner for only $1.25. I also tend to stock up frozen chicken breasts, which I don't remember the cost of since a big back of those lasts me a long time. But I usually end up eating one pork item and one chicken item a day, alternating between lunch and dinner. I'd say in total my daily meals are $4-$6. Obviously if you're eating filet mignon as your meat, your costs are gonna shoot up. :)
I'm an Indian, and lentils are one of the main ingredients in vegetarian Indian cooking. Mostly because they are the main source of proteins. I've never had any...problems with the force. But it might be because of conditioning.
in my experience, lentils were by far the worst. green especially. soy beans as well.
pinto aren't bad though. kidney are mediocre, as long as you dont eat too many at a time. I've been eating the same diet for 6 months now. I could probably graph what the effects of different beans are on me, at this point (it'd be a gross graph, so don't ask)
edit: again, ymmv. I'm sure different people process things differently, and chickpeas could be YOUR kryptonite. plan experiments accordingly.
