Whether you’re an avid cook or not, you may or may not be familiar with the process of soaking certain foods before you eat them. This is especially important for people who eat a plant-based diet because your protein absorption can be weakened if you don’t soak these ingredients before you cook and eat them. Besides dried beans, you might not be aware that there are many items that need to be soaked for at least 2 hours if not overnight to get their full nutritional value.
This is because the proteins in plant-based sources are usually attached to inhibitors which make them harder to digest. Even though soaking decreases the cooking time for foods and some of these foods already cook quickly, it’s still important to soak them for their nutrition.
Some of these foods include, lentils, quinoa, oats, brown rice, nuts and other seeds. With things like nuts you actually can get away with soaking them for about 20 minutes in boiling hot water. This will also clean them so it does double duty! For chia seeds, just put them in water for 10-15 minutes before you need to use them. This also helps chia seeds because if they haven’t been soaked, they can make you become dehydrated by absorbing too much water.
