In the foreground you have microwave burritos. Cost per person $5 at the Family Dollar General Tree.
In the background you have canning chickpeas and black beans. The chickpeas have already exited the canner. The black beans are about to go in. A pound of dried chickpeas or black bean is about $1.50. You will get 7 pints out of both. The current price for generic canned beans is about 90¢. Cost to can 7 cans of the beans: 22¢ per jar.
My back hurt too much to do the dinner I planned. But I had enough in me to can some stuff for the future.
It’s a convenience thing. It takes as much work to make beans for one meal as it does to can for seven at once. It saves a lot of time. Even if you pressure can day of. One soak, one cook is a lot less work than repeating it 7 times.
I frequently run into people that want to do things like can rice. Rice takes 20 minutes from start to finish and, like beans, are shelf stable. But beans require two hours of work if not precooked in addition to the pure nastiness of the texture of canned rice. Canned beans don’t have that issue.
I’ve thought about doing that very thing. I love me some beans, and only buy dried. It works if you’ve got a good day to day rhythm going. But if you don’t have the time, or miss soaking them the night before it’s all derailed.
Definitely. Gotta plan one day or two hours in advance.