CHICKPEAS: In the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and the Mediterranean, chickpeas have been a common ingredient in everyday cooking for thousands of years. “The reason chickpea is grown and consumed so heavily in those areas is because of its nutritional value,
the chickpea’s high protein—15 grams a cup when cooked—is seen as evidence of its superior food value in a diet culture obsessed with protein.
Chickpea is very efficient in terms of water use, and in most of the world, it’s grown as a rain-fed crop. It also enriches the ground it grows in: Chickpeas, like other legumes, release nitrogen into the soil.
