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The small ingredient that packs a super-sized nutritional punch, the lentil is an extremely valuable and endlessly versatile pulse. It is one of the world’s healthiest foods – the 68th UN General Assembly declared 2016 as the ‘International Year of Pulses’, shining a global spotlight on the lentil’s many benefits.

Along with peas, beans and chickpeas, lentils are pulses, the edible dried seeds of plants in the legume family. The name ‘pulse’ comes from the Latin puls meaning thick soup or potage, and interestingly, the lentil’s botanical name Lens culinaris went on to be adopted for the optical lens, the double-convex shape of which recalls the shape of a lentil.