There are lots of different canned foods available for decades. You can buy for examle canned legumes: beans, lentils, chickpeas, corn and the others. Canned legumes save us time, because they have an extremely long shelf life, they are basically ready to be eaten and not so expensive either. I still have some problems with them, but I will also give some alternative ideas: fresh legumes and preservation.

Spending less time of your life in the kitchen? Our life is literally depending on what we eat and not on other things. If you eat good and in harmony with nature, you are going to be healthy, or less sick if you like it that way better. For me food means fresh food or preserved by hands of other people and not factories. Canned food is made by noone, a company.

When you buy canned food, you dont know where the ingredients are coming from. You dont know who packed it and where. You dont know where the can is coming from and going to. You dont know what was used to get the long shelf life. You only know when it was packed and until when is it edible, which company made it, in which country it was packed. Organic, and vegan signs on the cans dont answer any of these questions either. And even if you recycle it, it is still trash.

 

Alternatives

Buy fresh legumes in shops, markets or from producers. The more local, and seasonal, the better. Organic is better, for your health definitely. You can store dried beans, chickpeas and lentils in containers and glass jars at home. You can buy fresh corn, peas, beans cook it and freeze it. So you can have them all year around.

Why is it better? Because you know where is it from, and there was nothing used to preserve them. There is no waste either, further more you can feed your garden with the peels of the legumes. So it is better for you and better for the environment too. Everyone wins, and you can spend some more time in the kitchen cooking and working together with friends or your family.

Soaking legumes

Dried legumes cannot be eaten raw! You always have to cook them, which is faster if you soak them the day before. That takes one minute. Put them into a pot and cover with water. The next day you can cook them. You will finish earlier with a pressure-cooker. Never cook yellow split peas in that, it will explode! When the legumes are soft, use them in any dish of your choice. Soup, sauce, spread, salad, dish with or without meat, desserts...

Cooking corn

Nothing is easier! Peel them, put them in cold water, and cook them 20 minutes from boiling. Cook some of the peels with them, so they will function as cover. You can eat the corn just by itself with salt or with butter. Cool them in the water, if you use them later. You can cut off the corns from the cob and use as the canned corn in a salad or a dish, or blend into a soup or sauce. You can also roast the corn on a barbecue or in the oven.

Enjoy the rest of the summer with a lot of preserving and cooking. Have a lot of fun and good work!