Seven Ways of Looking at a Lentil
From a dried pod, crack out two discs. Rub the smooth seeds between your fingers. If they are reddish-orange, they will turn to mush when cooked in a stew or a curry. Green and brown ones retain some bite after cooking, perfect for a burger or a stir fry. These lentils reach from the ancient past into the future, nurturing us toward abundance, if we only look closer at what they offer.
1. Prenatal Vitamin
Newly pregnant with my daughter, one of my favorite quick lunches was a soft taco made with lentil “meat,” which I prepared by mixing cooked green lentils with sauteed onions and buffalo sauce. An alarming orange color signaled how drenched in artificial spice the lentils were.
For our niece’s Taco Twos-day-themed birthday party, I brought a container of lentil filling. My sister-in-law raised an eyebrow at the mixture when my husband, Julio, explained that these lentils were delicious and we had been eating them often. “We’ll see how long that lasts,” she said, implying that morning sickness would put me off the dish.
At six weeks of gestation, an embryo is approximately the size of a lentil. At that stage, folate aids neural tube development. Most doctors advise women to start taking prenatal vitamins before they conceive, if possible, because folate’s role is so crucial in early gestation. Lentils are among the most folate-rich foods, providing 60% of an average adult’s daily needs per serving.
I cannot remember why we stopped eating the lentil tacos, but it was not due to nausea. The pandemic broke out just as I crossed into the second trimester and by that point, all I wanted to eat was fruit. The days of working from home and social distancing lengthened and I peeled Clementine oranges as my appetite waned. I had to eat even if I didn’t want to. My daughter grew from that lentil-sized start to an onion, an acorn squash, and—strangely—a stalk of Swiss chard. I seldom felt like cooking in the later months, but I looked at those foods and understood the nutrition they offered, nourishment for growing another person from scratch, a human version of the alchemy of seed, soil, and water.
2. Emergency Ration
The day the COVID-19 pandemic started to shut down offices, travel, and the NBA, I went grocery shopping on my way home from work. The store was so busy that there were no carts. Hauling a handbasket through the dry and canned goods section, scooping up a heavy load of beans, lentils, and rice, I was stopped halfway down the aisle because the line for the self-check machines stretched across the store. I started to collect what I needed while standing in the creeping queue. A man nearby scoffed, “This kind of stuff’s all that’s left in the store.”
I rolled my eyes. This “kind of stuff” was a staple in our kitchen and kitchens worldwide, building blocks for countless cuisines. A can of beans or a bag of lentils was a starting point for a pot of food that could feed a family well and cheaply. During World War II, a different time of disrupted supply chains and victory gardens, lentils were promoted in the United States as a low-cost alternative to meat. I knew this history, but I had different motives for my shopping.
I filled our small pantry with beans, lentils, cans of tomatoes, coconut milk, and containers of broth. I was not afraid we’d go hungry, but instinct pushed me to buy those essentials to guarantee that my body, hard at work on our daughter, would get what it needed. I must not have been alone in the urge to stock up on dry goods. In December 2022, Food & Wine ran an article titled “What to Do with the Bag of Lentils You Panic Bought.” I chuckled when I saw it and whispered “Curry!” at the headline, “Make a lot of curry.”
The following week, I simmered red lentils with peppers and onions in a spiced sauce made from crushed tomatoes and coconut milk. The fragrant dish, served over rice, warmed our bellies and comforted us as we watched World News Tonight, dazed by how quickly daily life had fallen into hushed chaos.
3. Cultural Ambassador
In the Midwestern community where I grew up, identifying as a vegetarian has prompted odd looks and a begrudging curiosity about what I eat. People peer into my bowl and study it as if the plants I have cooked are not food. “You could add some chicken. For protein,” people suggest, trying to help.
“What are you eating?” I am asked as I stir a warmed container of Morroccan-style lentils, cooked in stewed tomatoes with cumin and paprika.
“Lentils,” I reply, adding unironically, “The food of the future.” Were my husband here, he would roll his eyes. My praise of lentils has become a common hymn at our table.
Although unusual to mid-American cuisine, Lentils are a common ingredient in meals around the world. India consumes the biggest share of the lentils harvested each year, but French, Spanish, Mexican, Middle Eastern, and Asian cooks also use lentils in soups, stews, curries, and tagines. Like little culinary envoys, lentils can travel and blend into local cuisines, a reminder—like salt, acid, fat, and heat—of how much we have in common around the table.
4. Athletic Fuel
At the 2024 Olympics in Paris, France, lentils were a feature of the menu. "One of the major commitments by Paris 2024 was offering vegetarian meals in order to halve the carbon footprint of each meal on average," Gregoire Bechu, head of sustainable food at the Paris organizing committee explained. The lentil daal recipe offered to the athletes was chosen with nutrition and the environment in mind. Lentils offer the substantial servings of protein the athletes need without the big carbon footprint of meat.
Because lentils are high in both protein and fiber, alongside complex carbohydrates, they may support athletic performance, particularly in endurance events. One 2012 study found that lentils offered a metabolic advantage during endurance exercise and enhanced the recovery of athletes after their workouts. The slow, steady burn of the lentils’ dense nutrition profile may account for the slight advantage they offer over other pre-workout foods.
Another study run at the University of Saskatchewan found that soccer players who consumed pulses, such as lentils, before a match showed improvement in agility performance toward the end. Players who ate lentils daily for longer than a month could run a greater distance in matches by 2.5%.
My husband runs 70 miles per week and to sustain that volume of activity, he cycles through different snacks to refuel his body. We are out of bananas practically the second I bring them home. The night before a race, however, he wants an extra boost, something with all the fuel to perform the next day, but nothing that will feel heavy in his gut or upset his stomach during pre-race nerves. He decided on a Korean lentil dish, which features brown lentils simmered in chili garlic and Gochujang sauce, as his designated pre-race dinner. A bed of rice provides extra starch while the protein and fiber of the lentils give his muscles and his belly what they need the following morning. I try to go easy on the spice.
5. Magic Beans
A poor little boy was sent by his widowed mother to sell their last cow. They needed money badly, but the boy was tricked into trading the cow for five magic beans. Angrily, his mother tossed the beans out the window, where an enormous beanstalk sprouted. The boy climbed up and, although he was pursued by a giant who wanted to eat him on toast, he escaped home with bags of gold coins and a hen who laid golden eggs, which provided for the boy and his mother to live well, happily ever after.
Lentils are not beans, but they are members of the legume family. As I pick through a cup of lentils, casting aside little pebbles or odd-looking pieces, I think about Jack and his magic beans. If we traded some of our cows for lentils, might we live well too? There are no magic solutions to climate change and the health crises that stem from the Modern American Diet, but lentils offer so much nutrition and so many environmental benefits that they start to sound like something from a fairytale.
For example, farming lentils creates carbon emissions 10-20 times lower than animal products do, while also producing more protein per square foot than raising cows or chickens does. Additionally, lentils store carbon in the soil up to 30% more effectively than other crops. As they grow, the root system of lentils fixes nitrogen in the soil, transforming atmospheric nitrogen into a bioavailable version. This process can help restore depleted soil, especially because lentils do not require tilling.
From a human health perspective, lentils are high in protein and fiber, complex carbohydrates, B vitamins, iron, and magnesium. Through resistant starch and prebiotic fiber, lentils support a balanced gut biome, improving digestive health. They are also unusually high in polyphenols, the plant compounds that help regulate blood sugar and boost heart, skin, and brain health. Polyphenols are also thought to help fight cancer cells and prevent them from growing. Lentils are anti-inflammatory and may help reduce the risk of colon, thyroid, liver, breast, and prostate cancers. They are not magic beans, but a long enough look at the health benefits of lentils makes them seem like a panacea for our bodies and the earth.
6. Garden Project
Lentils are one of the earliest domesticated crops. Today, Canada grows half of the lentils served around the world, but artifacts of lentil consumption have been found in archeological sites dating to 8,000 BC on the banks of the Euphrates River. They were regularly eaten by Egyptians, Romans, and Hebrews, and were likely a staple of Jesus' diet. In The Book of Genesis, Esau traded his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew.
Lentils are indigenous to much of the planet and were first brought to the Americas by Spanish and Portuguese explorers in the 1500s. So, I figured, if they are so common and robust, I could probably grow them too.
I suspect reports of growing food from leftover produce are exaggerated. Who hasn’t tried and failed to grow an avocado tree from a pit? But the lentils I buy at the store are seeds, so maybe I could get them to germinate. I soak ten lentils in a damp paper towel and tuck them into a plastic bag taped to the sunny kitchen window, mimicking the seed-starting project my daughter did at preschool. From her efforts, a green bean plant grows in a pot on the patio. While I wait, I research how to plant lentil seedlings.
Lentils require full sun and are mildly drought-resistant. The plants grow short and bushy, with flowers developing on lower branches that begin to sprawl out. From these flowers grow seedpods, each producing one to three lentils. Approximately 110 days from germination, the pods start to dry and yellow, ready for harvest.
I wonder how many lentils are in a serving. How big will my crop have to be? I scoop out a half-cup of green lentils from the pantry and as I count, I think about how many plants it takes to produce a pound of lentils. I consider how many hands do this work each year, how much effort goes into growing food just to feed my family of three. The scoop contains 1567 individual lentils. I might need a bigger garden. I continue my experiment, watching for germination, but with a new perspective, enhanced gratitude for farmers, strangers who nourish me.
7. Revolution
When I transitioned to a vegetarian diet seven years ago, one of the reasons was an argument that the earth has the resources to feed one and a half times the current human population, yet food insecurity and malnutrition persist because of an uneven distribution of those resources. Farmland that could feed hungry people is instead used to make cows fat. After adding this information to my concerns about the cruelty and carbon footprint of industrial animal agriculture, refusing to eat meat felt like the choice I could live with best.
For me, this change was simple but transformative. I had lived much of the previous decade on a small graduate stipend, so meat was a luxury that I occasionally cooked at home but usually reserved for dining out with other people. Although fresh produce can be expensive, many plant-based staples are cheap and shelf-stable, especially beans and lentils. Intentionally moving to a vegetarian diet made me more curious about the food I eat, where it comes from, how it grows, and who grows it. It sparked in me a passion for whole foods and greater care for the plants and animals I encounter. These feelings are not unique to my experience.
In Lentil Underground, Liz Carlisle tells the story of Timeless Natural Food, an underground network of organic farmers using heirloom seeds to push back against the monoculture forced upon American family farms. The movement started in the 1980s when David Oien replanted his family farm in Montana with organic lentils and grew to understand the positive impacts the crop could have on the environment and human health.
Carlisle explains, "So long as they have to operate within a cheap-food economy that externalizes its social and environmental costs, both farmers and eaters will be forced into the false choice between a healthy environment and their own bottom line. Timeless Seeds has prepared fertile ground—and an incredible demonstration of what's possible. But they can't fix the food system alone. That's a job for all of us" (251).
I find comfort in how revolutionary lentils could be contrasted with how simple and homey they feel. They sit on the shelf, tiny but powerfully nutritious, ready for when I need them to make curry or a French lentil soup. Perhaps too often, discussions about addressing the climate crisis focus on sacrifice and loss, when there is also untapped potential for abundance, equity, and joy in transitions toward more sustainable practices. We could all eat and eat well. I think that lentils, with all their cross-cultural significance, promises for better health, and agricultural value, represent that revolutionary potential, despite not looking like much at first glance.
Lentil Recipes
I use these lentil recipes regularly and hope you will enjoy them.
Red Lentil Curry (I make this about once a week and bump up my own serving with a dash of Tumeric Bomb Hot Sauce.)
Vegan Stuffed Butternut Squash with Lentil Apple Filling (I use walnuts instead of pecans because they are one of my daughter’s favorite snacks and we always have them in the pantry.)
Lentil Salad with Lemony Dressing (Good for a potluck)
Vegan Lentil Shepherd’s Pie (This is what I consider a lot of work, so I have only made it occasionally)
So happy you shared a few of your favorite recipes at the end. I was hoping you would. Really interesting read!