I’m skeptical of this. Over thousands of years of practice, there are many compelling reasons for a bean soaking practice to emerge. It saves fuel which is precious. Soaking beans overnight makes cooking beans for breakfast feasible by reducing cook time.
Given this, I would expect either 1) bean soaking is common contrary to your experience, or 2) there is a good reason why this practice didn’t emerge. Perhaps water safety is an issue, or perhaps water is scarce and soaking wastes water, or something else. I just don’t see any reason why thousands of years of cultural practice would not generate a behavior with such obvious and immediate benefits.
I just don’t see any reason why thousands of years of cultural practice would not generate a behavior with such obvious and immediate benefits.
I disagree with this. I know of quite a lot of examples of people not using clearly beneficial methods.
One case study I have done quite extensive research on is the slaughter of a fish called pond loach, commonly consumed in China, Japan, and Korea. They are small and slimy and therefore hard to grab and handle. In most of Korea and many parts of China, pond loaches are put in buckets and then sprinkled with salt which kills or immobilizes (this method sometimes doesn’t kill all of them immediately) them by osmotic dehydration, and also deslime them a bit. This makes salt a very effective way of slaughtering pond loaches as it makes them easy to grab and handle. Another added benefit of using salt is that it is always needed in the dish anyway. But for some reasons, people in some parts of China and Japan are using some other much more dangerous and time-consuming ways of killing pond loaches. (DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming that people should use salt to kill pond loaches. In fact, I think it is one of the worst slaughters of animals in the world, and I am working on eliminating this practice.)
Another example is my experience working as a production manager in a garment factory. It took me less than 15 minutes to figure out that one of their processes can be done in a different way that saves >30% labor time, and it is literally as easy as holding a component backwards. They changed to my method and never went back (PM me if you are interested in the full details). My boss and all the previous production managers have huge incentives to optimize everything in the production line—I mean they are a business, in an extremely competitive environment! But no they didn’t figure this one out until I joined.
It’s also possible that something has changed recently that makes this a better practice now than it used to be — to use your example, maybe water access is better now than it was historically. Maybe beans weren’t prevalent in this region or a strain of beans that were worse for soaking were previously more common.
This is possible, but it’s speculative and we should have a clear answer to the question of why this did not arise historically. Otherwise this is paternalism without regard for what other people know that we don’t.
Thanks Karthik I mostly agree, and if this idea progress towards action then for sure will make a concerted effort to understand why. Although finding clear answers to questions like this isn’t always easy.
People don’t always act rationally or optimize. Tradition/norms can have a lot of staying power. E.g. in neighboring eastern Congo, people pay more money for charcoal than they would for gas plus they are subjecting themselves to more indoor air pollution with charcoal. It’s an issue that is stumping the local gas stove companies. They even hire an anthropologist to help them design a new marketing campaign.
That sounds like a fascinating case study. Do you have a link to somewhere where I can read more about this? Or lacking that, at least the name of the company?
Pretty sure its not public. I only know about it because the anthropologist and I were staying at the house of the same mutual friend for a two week overlap.
I think it was Bboxx.
The most interesting thing I heard though was how much the military (FARDC) benefits from the illicit trade of charcoal. The FLDR (major armed group) has been described as a charcoal cartel operating in Virunga Park and for this reason US representatives and others have wanted to get people in Goma to switch to another fuel source so that it hurts the revenue of the FDLR.
The anthropologist followed charcoal from the source to the end market and documented all the mark-ups it went through. The amount that came from the FDLR taxing the movement of the good was less than what traffickers had to pay the FARDC at various check points. The conclusion of the anthropolist was that the framing of the FDLR acting like a cartel with charcoal was not accurate and the military has vested interest in the trade as well.
Yeah this stuff is really common, pretty interesting that both the rebels and the army were creaming off the top. Any high value commodity in East Africa is highly likely to have army involvement in its control.
In Uganda here many of the biggest charcoal production operations are controlled by the army..
Hey NickLaing, this is a really interesting post, thank you!
On this note, do you think that the army could be a significant obstacle to soaking beans then? If the army realised that there was this campaign that risked reducing the amount of charcoal bought per person, might they be considered a key obstacle to the chances of success e.g. not allowing bean-soaking campaigns in markets, not allowing it on the radio, etc.?
I am very naive on how much control the Ugandan army has but just a thought in terms of factoring in likelihood of success, given they may pose a powerful obstacle as they have a clear interest in charcoal consumption going up, not down.
I love your replies in the comments and openness to feedback/ideas/corrections. I will PM you out of interest re the garment technique you introduced if I may and also 100% agree with you—we can’t assume that bean-soaking wouldn’t work simply because it’s not been done before, just as goes for any number of examples such as the one you make on on pond loaches (also interested to hear what work you are doing on this as that is a horrific way of slaughtering).
Thanks Khartik. I’m also still rather confused why it isn’t the norm. I can assure you in Northern Uganda at least bean soaking is not just uncommon, but vanishingly rare as a practice. I’m sure some people do it, but I’m yet to find someone who even knows someone who soaks their beans.
And yes, given that there may still be a good reason why the practice didn’t emerge. I think the benefits traditionally would not be so clear as they are now as Isabel states below. If time isn’t valued, and the only difference might be that you have to cut 30 percent more firewood, than soaking might not really add value.
Water may also have been more scarce in the past, but now at least I’m pretty sure that’s a non issue.
I’m skeptical of this. Over thousands of years of practice, there are many compelling reasons for a bean soaking practice to emerge. It saves fuel which is precious. Soaking beans overnight makes cooking beans for breakfast feasible by reducing cook time.
Given this, I would expect either 1) bean soaking is common contrary to your experience, or 2) there is a good reason why this practice didn’t emerge. Perhaps water safety is an issue, or perhaps water is scarce and soaking wastes water, or something else. I just don’t see any reason why thousands of years of cultural practice would not generate a behavior with such obvious and immediate benefits.
I disagree with this. I know of quite a lot of examples of people not using clearly beneficial methods.
One case study I have done quite extensive research on is the slaughter of a fish called pond loach, commonly consumed in China, Japan, and Korea. They are small and slimy and therefore hard to grab and handle. In most of Korea and many parts of China, pond loaches are put in buckets and then sprinkled with salt which kills or immobilizes (this method sometimes doesn’t kill all of them immediately) them by osmotic dehydration, and also deslime them a bit. This makes salt a very effective way of slaughtering pond loaches as it makes them easy to grab and handle. Another added benefit of using salt is that it is always needed in the dish anyway. But for some reasons, people in some parts of China and Japan are using some other much more dangerous and time-consuming ways of killing pond loaches. (DISCLAIMER: I am not claiming that people should use salt to kill pond loaches. In fact, I think it is one of the worst slaughters of animals in the world, and I am working on eliminating this practice.)
Another example is my experience working as a production manager in a garment factory. It took me less than 15 minutes to figure out that one of their processes can be done in a different way that saves >30% labor time, and it is literally as easy as holding a component backwards. They changed to my method and never went back (PM me if you are interested in the full details). My boss and all the previous production managers have huge incentives to optimize everything in the production line—I mean they are a business, in an extremely competitive environment! But no they didn’t figure this one out until I joined.
It’s also possible that something has changed recently that makes this a better practice now than it used to be — to use your example, maybe water access is better now than it was historically. Maybe beans weren’t prevalent in this region or a strain of beans that were worse for soaking were previously more common.
This is possible, but it’s speculative and we should have a clear answer to the question of why this did not arise historically. Otherwise this is paternalism without regard for what other people know that we don’t.
Thanks Karthik I mostly agree, and if this idea progress towards action then for sure will make a concerted effort to understand why. Although finding clear answers to questions like this isn’t always easy.
Thanks Isabel that’s a great point.
People don’t always act rationally or optimize. Tradition/norms can have a lot of staying power. E.g. in neighboring eastern Congo, people pay more money for charcoal than they would for gas plus they are subjecting themselves to more indoor air pollution with charcoal. It’s an issue that is stumping the local gas stove companies. They even hire an anthropologist to help them design a new marketing campaign.
That sounds like a fascinating case study. Do you have a link to somewhere where I can read more about this? Or lacking that, at least the name of the company?
Pretty sure its not public. I only know about it because the anthropologist and I were staying at the house of the same mutual friend for a two week overlap.
I think it was Bboxx.
The most interesting thing I heard though was how much the military (FARDC) benefits from the illicit trade of charcoal. The FLDR (major armed group) has been described as a charcoal cartel operating in Virunga Park and for this reason US representatives and others have wanted to get people in Goma to switch to another fuel source so that it hurts the revenue of the FDLR.
The anthropologist followed charcoal from the source to the end market and documented all the mark-ups it went through. The amount that came from the FDLR taxing the movement of the good was less than what traffickers had to pay the FARDC at various check points. The conclusion of the anthropolist was that the framing of the FDLR acting like a cartel with charcoal was not accurate and the military has vested interest in the trade as well.
Yeah this stuff is really common, pretty interesting that both the rebels and the army were creaming off the top. Any high value commodity in East Africa is highly likely to have army involvement in its control.
In Uganda here many of the biggest charcoal production operations are controlled by the army..
Hey NickLaing, this is a really interesting post, thank you!
On this note, do you think that the army could be a significant obstacle to soaking beans then? If the army realised that there was this campaign that risked reducing the amount of charcoal bought per person, might they be considered a key obstacle to the chances of success e.g. not allowing bean-soaking campaigns in markets, not allowing it on the radio, etc.?
I am very naive on how much control the Ugandan army has but just a thought in terms of factoring in likelihood of success, given they may pose a powerful obstacle as they have a clear interest in charcoal consumption going up, not down.
I love your replies in the comments and openness to feedback/ideas/corrections. I will PM you out of interest re the garment technique you introduced if I may and also 100% agree with you—we can’t assume that bean-soaking wouldn’t work simply because it’s not been done before, just as goes for any number of examples such as the one you make on on pond loaches (also interested to hear what work you are doing on this as that is a horrific way of slaughtering).
Thanks Khartik. I’m also still rather confused why it isn’t the norm. I can assure you in Northern Uganda at least bean soaking is not just uncommon, but vanishingly rare as a practice. I’m sure some people do it, but I’m yet to find someone who even knows someone who soaks their beans.
And yes, given that there may still be a good reason why the practice didn’t emerge. I think the benefits traditionally would not be so clear as they are now as Isabel states below. If time isn’t valued, and the only difference might be that you have to cut 30 percent more firewood, than soaking might not really add value.
Water may also have been more scarce in the past, but now at least I’m pretty sure that’s a non issue.