Beans, Beans, the Magical Fruit.

We love our beans around here. We eat them for breakfast, lunch, snacktime, and dinner. Ok, we HAVE eaten them for all of those times but we don't do it regularly. We do have beans a few times a week. I love my black beans.

With so much bean-consumption going on, I have figured out what works really well for me. In fact, it works so well, it might be the reason we eat so many beans.

Occasionally I will buy canned beans to have as a back up, but we pretty much live off of dried beans. Why, you may ask? Basically 3 reasons:

1. They taste better. My accomplished sister in law Alicia passed on her secrets on the wonders of crockpot beans and eating canned beans now tastes similar to cardboard. By the way, crockpotting them is the way to go. I get so mad every time I try to do them on the stove top. They take WAY longer then the bag ever says and you have to keep an eye on them the whole time they're cooking.
2. They are so much cheaper. A 15 oz can of beans costs around a dollar. For that same price you can get a pound, or 16 oz, of dried beans. Isn't that the same? No sir-ee Bob. These are DRIED beans. They are beans minus the water. When they are done cooking 1 pound of beans is equivalent to 3 cans of beans. You're getting 66% more just by grabbing the bag instead of the can!
3. This reason should be a subset of #2: I don't waste anything. I cook a whole bunch at once and then freeze them flat in gallon sized baggies. When I want some beans I just break off a hunk and throw it in the microwave. I only cook what I'm going to use. Maybe it's just me but whenever I open a can of anything, I use what I need and then either A: leave it out on the counter still in the can for a day or so and then end up throwing the rest away or B: transfer it to a container for the fridge where it will rest indefinitely until the smell/lack of containers forces me to clean out the fridge. Either way the little cash register inside my head is telling me how much that cup of beans down the disposal just cost me and I am not happy.

As far as current prices go, Maceys does have WF canned beans on sale for $.48 as part of their caselot sale, the best price anywhere all year (unless some random crazy high value coupon comes out- unlikely) so if you're going to get canned beans, this would be a good time.

The last I checked Target was the cheapest price for a pound of black beans at $1.09 for a pound. As I look at the Caselot Price Comparison at PreparedLDSFamily, it looks like the LDS cannery has the best price on bulk beans at $14.50 for a 25 lb bag if you can get them. They don't sell them when there is a greater need somewhere else in the world. The next best price is at Maceys (Harmon's sale is over- they were better priced than Maceys) for $17.58 for a 20 lb bag.

If my math is right then it would still be a little better than 1/2 the price to get the Cannery beans verses the canned Macey beans.