Why are rice & pasta much more popular than lentils, chickpeas, soy beans in the fitness and bodybuilding communities?

Hey r/loseit!

I am cutting at the moment, but had been bulking up up until January 2020. Check out my post history for details, but I am 6'3" and went from ~190 lbs at the end of Summer 2017 (22 years old) when I started really working out, peaked at 217 lbs in early January 2020 (and I'd like to think I picked up a good amount of strength and size), and have since cut to 194 at the moment (25 years old), end of April while still maintaining good amounts of muscle/mostly losing fat.

This is a more generic diet question however, which I think can apply to any phase of your bulk or cut cycles. Why do most people that are into fitness and bodybuilding eat so much rice and pasta? We need a core carbohydrate source that acts as a base for many of our meals, and rice & pasta are some of the easiest to prepare and most available (in Canada/USA for sure, if not most of the world). But looking at the cost, calories, and protein numbers of rice & pasta vs lentils, chickpeas, & soy beans, I've been recently incorporating more of the latter since watching the What the Health documentary on Netflix. Is there something I am missing out on?

I am still aiming for the same amount of protein and calories as when I was eating more rice & pasta. >180g protein/day, 2500-2700 calories which has me losing 1.0-1.4 lbs/week while visually retaining muscle mass & strength (AFAIK without a real gym during quarantine). I've heard rumors that soy/plant proteins are lower quality, or effect estrogen/testosterone, but I believe the latter to be largely false. The documentary is certainly trying to convince everyone should to go completely vegan, so there is bias there. I've reduced how much meat, eggs, and dairy I am consuming, admittedly slightly out of fear, and kept protein levels up via the addition of lentils/chickpeas/soy beans where I had previously had rice & pasta. I still eat rice & pasta, but often mix in one of these other three sources. I'd like to think that having a diverse diet is also beneficial.

Here are some cost, calorie, and protein numbers of the core parts of my diet: https://imgur.com/gallery/6Tk8tMV I believe these numbers to be fairly accurate, but please let me know if there's glaring errors. These are from shopping at name brand stores in downtown Toronto, Ontario and I often get a student discount (~10%) and stock up when things are on sale. All of the lentils, chickpeas, and soybeans are dried and from bulk, not canned. A few things I have observed are as follows:

• First off, lentils/soybeans/chickpeas are not only cheap to start, they are cheap for how much protein you are getting when compared to rice & pasta, even eggs and Greek yogurt
• Greek yogurt is much more expensive than I had thought, but I love it so it's sticking around
• As I am aiming for at most 2700 calories with 190g protein, that's a 14.2 ratio calories/g_protein. My diet is IIFYM but I just care about daily calories and protein. With these three new food sources coming in around 12.4-19.2 calories/g_protein, I need to still use things like whey protein powder, chicken breast, eggs, etc to keep the protein high while calories stay low enough to cut weight.
• The calories/g_protein ratio for rice was MUCH higher than I had expected. Always thought that rice was this magic lean, cutting food, assuming you weren't drowning it in sauces. Quite the opposite. Pasta (the rotini) is also high, about double the calories to get the same amount of protein.

Thanks for the read! Hoping to learn a bunch from you all, so please share your facts and opinions. Perhaps it is just a taste/preference thing towards rice & pasta, but I've started to really like using these new foods in my diet.

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source https://www.reddit.com/r/loseit/comments/g7j2q3/why_are_rice_pasta_much_more_popular_than_lentils/