FOOD I've come to the sad truth that most, not all, of the dried beans in our stores are no longer sproutable

[tnphil]

I made pinto beans last Wednesday, and with this thread in mind, I was curious... I used Kroger brand dried pintos. I took out 8 beans before soaking/cooking and put them between damp paper towels. As of today, 5 have sprouted. That's 5 days to sprout.

Follow up... as of this morning, 7 of the 8 beans have sprouted, but my paper towels got a bit dry. They are just laying in the kitchen at room temperature of about 68 degrees, no warming, etc.
The "best by" date on the bag is Sept 2024, so I'm guessing harvested and dried maybe 7 months ago?

 

[Slydersan]

I've heard the same thing about light/dark pinto beans. But I usually grow a small row every year and I can tell you that I get both each and every year - some are dark and some are light. I almost always let them dry on the vine, and when I shell them, they are light and dark. I couldn't tell you an exact variety - but I know I started out growing them from some random 1lb. bag of pinto beans from the grocery store as an experiment. And have planted some Burpees seed as well and they all just happily make me beans from which I keep a small plastic baggie for next year's seed. I've tried planting just dark ones to see if I get dark ones only, etc. but I got light ones as well. So it all is just random as far as I can tell.

And yes I did they same thing as Tristan, except I used the 12-bean soup mix. I didn't plant every kind, but I know I used lima, black, pinto, navy, and kidney beans from the mix. Everything sprouted, came up and produced beans of various types.