Beans and rice combine together to provide complete protein a body needs. That means one can get sufficient protein without eating animal meat and in an emergency situation, that's important as animal meat could be diminished, even severely. Now, I know guys will get their trusty rifles and head to the woods to shoot Bambi. Unless all laws fail, that's not going to happen except during deer season and there's no way to keep that deer meat good anyway without refrigeration/freezing, except to make it into jerky (if you know how to make jerky without power in the house).
The chemistry part: Beans and rice do not have to be eaten in equal amounts in order for the body to break it down into complete protein. Denise Hansen, the dietician tells us in, “Eating off the Grid” (you really need this book), that the ratio of 3 or 4 portions of grains (rice) to 1 of legumes (beans), is sufficient. Let's see, that's about 4 tablespoons of cooked rice (grain) and 1 tablespoon of cooked beans (legumes), or about 1/2 cup cooked rice and 1/8 cp. cooked beans, or 1 cup cooked rice and 1/4 cup cooked beans. Get the idea? Be sure to eat enough rice with the beans and be sure smaller children don't just eat one or the other. Said another way by Utah State University: “Dry beans average about 22% protein in the seed, the highest protein content of any seed crop. They contain all essential amino acids, except methionine. Methionine can be obtained from corn, rice, or meat.”
The plastic packages of all dried beans in the grocery, have a best by date of about 1 year (stamped on the back in ink and good luck finding it). I don't depend on those packages just left on a shelf after two years for an emergency situation, and here's why: over time the bean oil will finally dry out, then the beans will not absorb water. Only thing to do with the beans, then, is grind them up for powder and add it to other dishes you make. I got beans professionally packed to last 25 years.
COOKING DRIED BEANS:
Dried beans are hard things that have to be made into soft, plumped up things. Cooking dried beans seems to mean a long time of boiling, boiling, boiling, using a lot of fuel - example: I have a bag of 15 bean soup mix, have to soak beans overnight, then simmer them two and a half hours. I also see recipes on the web saying simmer pinto beans for four hours. I'm not using that much fuel in an emergency situation. (In today's world, with power, when I do bean soup, I put it all in crock pot and let it do it's thing for about 5 hours.)
Rather than write the instructions for cooking beans in Cooking off the Grid, I'll just tell you what I did when I followed them, very simple. For this experiment, I used one cup of dried pinto beans. I rinsed them to remove any dirt. Put them in a pot with water to twice the depth of the beans. Brought them to a boil and boiled (don't simmer), for two minutes (just two minutes!). Removed them from heat and let them sit 1 hour. Poured off the dirty soak water. Covered with new water, added 1 tablespoon oil and 1/2 tsp salt as it said, boiled them 30 min. and they were totally done. Beans that will cook to soft in this thirty minute final cooking are black, white, red, pinto, kidney, garbanzo, etc. Lima beans, large or baby, need 45 min. final cooking time.
Some type beans do not need soaking/puffing up before cooking - lentils is one and they cook in 30 minutes. Others are split peas and black eyed peas.
I didn't add any seasoning to these beans, just wanted to see if this method would work and it did. YOU MUST ADD SEASONING TO BEANS TO GIVE THEM A GOOD TASTE. Perhaps you already know which seasoning you like, just have plenty of it and try to vary the seasonings to give them different tastes at different times so boredom doesn't set in.
I put all the on the top of the stove breads and dessert recipes on that prepper site, so I'll post those tomorrow as it is very late tonight.
Good golly...you’ve just greatly expanded my food prep capability. I’ve always known dried beans were a good food source but haven’t included any in my food preps because of the fuel needed to cook them for hours. (Beans, rice & cornbread is a favorite meal around our house.)
But, that just changed. With the new cooking instructions and other suggestions (pressure cooker, cinder block stove)...in THIS PREPPER THREAD ALONE...my food prep direction has changed significantly.
Thank you all!
This is an excellent description, and almost exactly how I prepare beans. The difference is I also go ahead and soak mine overnight(my Granny taught me this). Recently, I ran across the reason for it - it is supposed to decrease digestive stress and help with absorption of nutrients. An article about this is noted below.
I was curious to know if there was any indication of how much rice or beans would be needed, if a little bit of protein was available?