I’ve read the Fast Diet book, doing well in my first couple of weeks. I’m a semi-veg (ovo-lacto,occasional piscitarian…) and eat dried beans as a staple protein. I’m puzzled by the bean weight indications in recipes and calorie charts. Cooked beans vary a *lot* in water content and therefore weight. Small weights of dry beans are really impractical to cook. Canned beans are anathema in my household — my husband’s latino, and regards canned beans as inedible (agreed!) So when you give a calorie count for 100 g of lentils, exactly what are you talking about? 100 g cooked, raw, out of a can (drained / undrained)??
NB We have the custom of cooking up a large pot of beans on the weekend. They get boiled daily, which means they decrease in density over the week.
So far, I’ve avoided beans on fast days because of this set of doubts. This constrains my diet more than anything else. I’d feel really freed up if I could get a handle on this question. Thanks.

Sorry! I hadn’t looked at this page in ages, and forgot I’d not given you the recipe. My husband’s family’s bean recipe:

Salvadoran red silk beans (Goya sells them) are small, hard, and take forever to cook.

Clean a bunch of beans (I do 2 cups or so for a 3-person household). Clean them really carefully; any that have neat round holes in them have had weevils, and any that show a neat round shadow under the skin have a weevil still in residence. Get rid of stones, sticks, broken beans. Wash several times, throwing out any that float. Some people pre-soak beans and throw the water; this is mostly done for new vegetarians whose stomachs aren’t used to beans. Others soak & cook in the soak water. I do neither. Soaking beans is considered to ruin the flavor, and latino cooks avoid it.

Put in a pot with a lot of water and several cloves of garlic. Boil — this will take about 3 hours — adding water as needed. It’s best to add small quantities of hot water, so the boiling doesn’t stop. If you put in a little bit of oil, it reduces the risk of foaming and boilovers. Add salt toward the end; if you add it at the beginning, it will lengthen the cooking time, and if you add it after cooking the beans will be bland and the broth full of salt. These get left in the big iron bean pot on the stove and get boiled once a day, twice if the weather is very hot, with more water added as needed.

If the beans burn, and you catch them at once, you can put them into another pot, leaving the stuck ones behind. If they burn and you don’t catch them at once, they’re ruined. If you’re using a traditional clay pot, even a glazed one, the pot is also ruined; you’ll never get the flavor of burnt beans out.

The bean pot is a traditional tool that housewives us to control the behavior of younger women. “I’m going to Mass, or to see my aunt, or to the market — you’re in charge of the beans!” and the flighty daughter or daughter-in-law or housemaid cannot leave the house while you’re absent because if the beans burn you will know it, and if they’re taken off the fire you’ll know because they won’t be done at the right time.

As you can see this is a dish that evolves over several days. You’d practically have to count the beans to get a calorie count! I’m doing fine but still not eating beans on fast days.