I recently discovered that I like peas porridge. You can apparently just put the split peas in water in an insta-pot and if you cook them enough they disintegrate. Unlike beans or potatoes, you don’t have to mash them to get a homogeneous food. The resulting soup firms up nicely when refrigerated, and you can sweeten or spice the “pudding” depending on your preference.
Winco carries dry split green peas for $0.86/lb. Walmart offers price parity to that in 8lb bags. The commodity index price is $0.15/lb, so I think something is up with the supply chain and recursive markups because that’s almost a 600% markup (contrast the allegedly typical 1-2% grocery store markup). In any case, dry peas are 20% protein, so the protein powder equivalent would be $4.30/lb. (I have yet to see protein powder at anything close to this price.)
Oats are 13% protein but slightly cheaper than peas, so they have a similar protein to dollar value ratio. They have a different amino acid profile, so you can mix or alternate between the two to get complete protein.
However, both oats and peas contain significant amounts of phytic acid which can prevent the absorption of various minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium) during the same meal. The trick here might be to cook no higher than 90°C (the lowest setting of the insta-pot should suffice) to avoid denaturing phytase enzymes prematurely while giving them time to work. Rye is relatively high in phytase, oats relatively low, so adding a handful of rye might be ideal (or wheat berries).
Alternatively, you could obtain phytase from a feed store (typically added to chicken and swine feeds). Phytases intended for animal feeds tend to be thermostable up to 120°C so you would not have to be as careful with the cooking temperature.
Phytic acid is certainly a thing, but it’s not quite that simple, see eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8746346/. Also, uncooked fruits have phytase. And also, it’s not an issue unless you eat mostly something high in it for most meals.
I recently discovered that I like peas porridge. You can apparently just put the split peas in water in an insta-pot and if you cook them enough they disintegrate. Unlike beans or potatoes, you don’t have to mash them to get a homogeneous food. The resulting soup firms up nicely when refrigerated, and you can sweeten or spice the “pudding” depending on your preference.
Winco carries dry split green peas for $0.86/lb. Walmart offers price parity to that in 8lb bags. The commodity index price is $0.15/lb, so I think something is up with the supply chain and recursive markups because that’s almost a 600% markup (contrast the allegedly typical 1-2% grocery store markup). In any case, dry peas are 20% protein, so the protein powder equivalent would be $4.30/lb. (I have yet to see protein powder at anything close to this price.)
Oats are 13% protein but slightly cheaper than peas, so they have a similar protein to dollar value ratio. They have a different amino acid profile, so you can mix or alternate between the two to get complete protein.
However, both oats and peas contain significant amounts of phytic acid which can prevent the absorption of various minerals (iron, zinc, magnesium, calcium) during the same meal. The trick here might be to cook no higher than 90°C (the lowest setting of the insta-pot should suffice) to avoid denaturing phytase enzymes prematurely while giving them time to work. Rye is relatively high in phytase, oats relatively low, so adding a handful of rye might be ideal (or wheat berries).
Alternatively, you could obtain phytase from a feed store (typically added to chicken and swine feeds). Phytases intended for animal feeds tend to be thermostable up to 120°C so you would not have to be as careful with the cooking temperature.
Phytic acid is certainly a thing, but it’s not quite that simple, see eg https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8746346/. Also, uncooked fruits have phytase. And also, it’s not an issue unless you eat mostly something high in it for most meals.
Soaking seeds overnight seems to be a good way to reduce phytic acid.