Paramadayala Nityananda Das: I wonder how many people in India need to force their children to take dahl, chickpea savories, and other food derived from beans. I suspect the number is low because I have never seen it required in western ISKCON Temples. At any rate, once kids try these, they love them. The situation is very different in much of the world- where Vedic cooking is uncommon. Children rate beans and vegetables from undesirable to abhorrent.
I remember, as a child, taking a half hour to force down a few pinto beans (garnished with salt and maybe a drop of butter) before being allowed to leave the dinner table. This is not a mere anecdote. The parental admonishment “eat your vegetables!” has been a ubiquitous cliché for untold generations. The Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations knows about the issue; therefore, they published a document “How to Get Kids to Eat Pulses”.
But, because of the coronavirus, there has been a boom in the bean business. I was surprised when I went to a U.S. grocery store, to stock up, and found the bean shelves virtually empty. I thought “Other people are stocking up on beans also?” Sure enough, I just read a NYT article about the boom. All over the U.S., shelves usually stocked with slow-selling beans are empty. One, shocked, bean farmer reportedly said, “I used to be the loneliest vendor at the farmers market” Some companies are seeing a 400% rise in demand.
We can’t expect this trend to last after the pandemic is over- it is an austerity measure. Of course, bean preparations are popular in some countries outside of India, South America for example. But (beyond the child resistance) among large groups of people in the U.S., and many other places, beans are bland and have a stigma as poor people’s food. They are associated with food consumption during the Great Depression. In my locality, “feed um beans!” is still a common insult. But that could change if people learned to make dahl, chickpea savories, and other bean foods. They are inexpensive, yet delicious and nutritious, some are in the gourmet category, and kids love them! The protein content makes them an ideal substitute for meat. Devotees should try to find ways to spread “Higher Taste” We can also flood the internet with YouTube cooking classes (as devotees). The “Hare Krishna’s” will become famous for causing beans the to be properly honored as distinguished, and virtuous, food.