— Hermela A Teferra

No, actually, you know, you can absolutely save the liquids that you cook the beans with. Um, you know, it's typically referred to as an aquafaba. It's very popular thing to be able to cook with as well. Um, a lot of people use it because the water that's in it has so much protein that's in it as well. It does have some of the nutrients, but you've actually cooked a lot of those nutrients into your beans as well too. So if you're not going to use it for a separate recipe, I wouldn't worry about it as much. If you are experimenting with different things that might use aquafaba, absolutely save it. Um, uh, you know, Char, who's just commented earlier, taught me a trick earlier about freezing it, which I thought was a great idea. 'cause a lot of times when you open a jar of, or a can of chickpeas or something like that, you're like, what do I do with this? Or if you've cooked a bunch of beans and you're like, what do I do with this freezing? It's a great option if you can, um, you know, use it later, uh, to be able to use it a thickener or all kinds of different things you can do with aquafaba. So don't be too, don't beat yourself up too much about, um, throwing out the liquid the beans are cooked in. People have done it for a very long time and not even bat at an eyelash at it. Um, more recently it's become more popular to be able to reuse it, which is great. But even, you know, on a whole food plant-based diet, if we all saved all the water that our beans were cooked in, we'd have way, way, way, way too much. Um, so don't feel too guilty about throwing it out if you're not using it.