Taking Our Pulses

Good news --- pulses can help the climate! This article recently came to me (by way of the Plant-Powered Earth Holders) --- Your Hummus Habit Could Be Good for the Earth:

https://wwwnpr.org/sections/thesalt/2019/07/10/739054484/your-hummus-hab...

Reading it expanded my vocabulary as I learned what "pulses" are: a subset of legumes, the ones that are used as dry seeds. This includes dry beans, lentils and such but not green beans, fresh peas, alfalfa, clover or many of the other 13,000 species of legumes, a large plant family that includes several trees.

All legumes are nitrogen-fixers, which means they are able to take nitrogen from the air and put it into the soil as a natural fertilizer. The article focuses particularly on chickpeas and the rising popularity of hummus. It's so good to know that when I dip into my hummus, I'm helping to restore the soil, decrease the use of chemical fertilizers, and even, as they suggest, helping sequester carbon in the soil.

I'm going to look at my pulses with new respect, now that I know their name and all the good they can do.