This will be an interesting thread to follow. I've never grown beans other than fresh green beans, so have no direct experience with drying or storing beans. I, of course, with several years as a vegetarian myself, have cooked a lot of beans. Beans are low on the gylcemic index and still allowable to me -- just this week used a can of kidney beans.
I did have a friend whose parents had a small eastern Washington farm, she used to give me bags of what they called Glean Beans -- that is the mixed up gleanings of the crops. I used them like the multi-bean soup recipes -- after a thorough cleaning!
Just before we left Seattle, I discovered Peruvian beans, they have several different names. Great big beans with a nice texture, they look like overgrown limas but with a different taste.