A Boom Time for the Bean Industry
Tim McGreevy has worked in the bean business for more than 30 years. But when he scanned the bean aisles at a grocery store in Pullman, Wash., on Sunday, he saw something he had never seen before: empty shelves.
“In one sense, this is like my best dream,” said Mr. McGreevy, who runs a trade group for producers and packagers of pulses, a category of legumes that includes beans. “In another sense, you go, ‘Wow, this is pretty serious.’”
As the coronavirus pandemic upends daily life across the United States, Americans are filling their pantries with long-lasting essentials — pasta, rice, canned meat, even oat milk.
But amid all the panic shopping, the growing demand for beans has stood out as an especially potent symbol of the anxious and uncertain times. At supermarkets, shoppers are stocking up on canned beans from familiar brands like Goya Foods, as well as thick bags of dry beans that usually lie largely untouched on store shelves.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/22/business/coronavirus-beans-sales.html
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I was trying to keep up my stock of red lentils, as I was on my last jar after I made a batch of red lentil dal.
No red lentils to be found.
I keep dried beans and lentils in jars and use my food saver jar attachment to suck all the air out before putting them in my basement food storage room. Usually I keep two jars in the basement and I was going to run short.
I did find some last week so no big deal. But I did notice the bulk bins were getting hit hard.
Hopefully folks know how to cook them. I remember a couple of years ago, someone on another board that I post on said how sick they’d gotten after eating some soaked kidney beans. They didn’t realize they had to cook them after soaking. 
