About cooking the beans- I like to add a little bit of powdered ginger to the bens in the first water and heat it to boiling, let it soak, pour water off and rinse and then cook beans. I think it makes them less gassy. Also I cooked bean soup years ago with tomatoes in with the beans from the get go and that was a mistake because it keeps the beans from getting soft if you put in the tomatoes too soon. Hope that might help.
