Hi all, new member here. Recently me and the boyfriend decided to go raw for a week to try it out. We've both been vegan for a little over a year now. I stumbled across a tasty looking recipe on Pinterest for a raw falafel wrap. It said to soak 2 cups of garbanzos overnight, drain and rinse and blend it in a processor with other ingredients, such as other veggies and herbs and wrap it in a collard leaf and eat it just like that.

Unfortunately, we didn't have all the ingredients for the wrap so we decided to make hummus. RAW HUMMUS. I wish I did research on eating raw garbanzos. Everywhere I have read that you have to fully cook them or sprout them before use. Neither of which we did. I woke up this morning with a bad stomach ache and had to go to the bathroom a few times. (TMI!!), boyfriend says he feels fine. My question is: will I be okay? should I at all be worried? is my digestive track going to be damaged? Has anyone else had this experience?

Please put my mind at ease, as you can see, I'm quite prone to over-worrying and anxiety >.<

Thanks in advance

Well I hope you have learned your lesson and don't do that again. Be glad you didn't try that stunt with kidney beans - you'd probably still be in the hospital. You got off lucky with just a probably trashed s blade.

You should research well before eating any raw thing. One of my friends did something like this and end up in hospita. Hopefully you're O.K now

Oh, boy, I am soooo sorry to hear that and I sympathize! I have colon/digestion issues myself and found that I can eat maybe one batch of raw hummus made from sprouted chickpeas but only once in a blue moon! And it's not 100% comfortable, either. I came back from Hippocrates Health Institute in the summer of 2010 with their raw hummus recipe, happy that I'd have an easy-to-make recipe in my repertoire and all that is true but couldn't stand it past the first few days and my tolerance went down day by day! Phew.

But fortunately, there's an alternative you can at least try that I found worked for me. Every recipe that has called for sprouted chickpeas I substitute with sprouted lentils! Easy peasy and NOOOO problems (for me). I thought of trying them when I racked my brains trying to find an alternative. Chickpeas are legumes. Lentils are legumes. Presto!

Might be worth a shot (?). The nice thing is that they take so little time to sprout, too, in a pinch. I eat sprouted lentils in my salad nearly every day or make the raw "hummus" recipe with them and can eat a good-sized portion every day without problems (and I ate a 1-cup serving per lunch for 2 years straight!).

Might be worth a shot ... (?).

Good luck!

Hi Monica,

If you can, try to get fresh garbanzo beans, these are the best things ever (at least of beans). The only problem is they are so delicious that I rarely many to make hummus before I eat them all.

Some random link I found on the internet with pictures of what I'm talking about:
[www.shockinglydelicious.com]

I use them for making hummus, chana masala, falafel, etc.. But mostly I just eat them raw straight from the shell.

Enjoy!
Ian,

I would love to try chickpeas straight from the shell, but never have had that opportunity.

I have however tried -- a number of times -- making hummus with soaked and sprouted garbanzo beans that were uncooked.

It never failed to cause me digestive upset (although I am not at all prone to digestive probs).