It was a general practice in Indian household to soak the lentils for at least 10 to 12 hrs prior to cooking as it use to soften the the pulp of the lentils and hence it used to take less time for cooking, so saving the time as well as fuel, but now as we have pressure cooker we can make the daals pretty quick now we don't soak the lentils at all.
You must have heard a lot of talk about the health benefits of sprouted lentils and so called scientist whom I will refer from here on as stupid will give you a very scientific explanation of the same and they will say it contain amino acid, B 6, B12 and bla bla bla, lets make it simple, it has life now, it can grow on to become a crop, the dry lentils when given water and atmosphere of earth generates life in it, it is something similar to the life in a bowl of yogurt prepared from milk and when it has life it can give life i.e. it can be easily absorbed by your body and this is the point you should cook it, you don't have to wait for 2 to 3 days so that the the sprout becomes longer but yes soaking it in water for 10 to 12 hrs and than keeping it in atmospheric air for few hrs to the point that few of them generates a little sprout, this is the point that we know that the seeds of life has been sown in to the lentils, cook it at this time you will gain much more than amino acids, B6, and B12 b'coz the stupid think that what they know is complete science, they will give you the composition analysis that so and so vegetables has this this much of protein and etc but the fact is that the knowledge of universe is infinite, we have just reached the mars but the universe consist of infinite number of such galaxies. :) Om
