You know the drill. Beans and such have evil things in their skins, so traditional societies diligently soaked them to remove said evil things. Furthermore, sprouting is known to improve digestibility and quality of the protein. So soak and sprout your beans!
I don't disagree with any of the above, I just -- taking off scientist hat -- wonder out loud if that's really why traditional cultures did these things.
First off, I'm thinking that pretty early on, humans figured out that if you dried things, they tended to last a really long time in storage without spoiling. Further, certain things may well have been discovered in already dried forms! I planted green beans one year and went on vacation in August. Well, you can guess what happened. I imagine the "bean" part could have been saved and eaten, however. I also think there's no better snack than snap peas picked fresh, so I plant those almost every year even if I don't bother with any other garden proper. You pop a few "seeds" into the ground, water, and in a day or so you start to see signs of life.
