The dish

Beans: to soak or not.

(Repost)

Man, I hate when there’s no clear answer to a cooking question.

The question is whether or not it makes sense to soak dried beans before cooking. You have three options: Soak overnight in cold water (they’re actually fully soaked after about four hours, but can stay in the water for up to eight hours); soak quickly in one hour by starting with boiling water; or don’t soak and increase your cooking time and cooking liquid.
Here are the arguments I’ve found for and against soaking:

Arguments against soaking beans:

Usually I can at least offer an opinion based on a preponderance of evidence, perhaps mixed with personal experience or observation, but on this one, I just don’t know. You might have a tradeoff between tradition and nutrition, or between convenience and flavor.

I can only tell you what I do, or what I don’t do: I’ve stopped soaking beans. I never found a cooking benefit, and I was unaware of a nutritional question until shortly before I started writing this post. I did find something interesting in, of all places, Wikipedia – and, oddly enough, it comes from a bona fide academic source:

Probiotic lactobacilli, and other species of the endogenous digestive microflora as well, are an important source of the enzyme phytase which catalyses the release of phosphate from phytate and hydrolyses the complexes formed by phytate and metal ions or other cations, rendering them more soluble ultimately improving and facilitating their intestinal absorption.

That indicates to me that popping a couple of L. acidophilus pills before chowing down on some (unsoaked-before-cooking) beans might help you get the best of both worlds. But beyond that, I’m as confused as ever.

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