Lentils vs. Legumes

Main Difference

The main difference between Lentils and Legumes is that the Lentils is a species of plant and Legumes is a plant in the family Fabaceae.

• Lentils

  The lentil (Lens culinaris or Lens esculenta) is an edible pulse. It is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, known for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about 40 cm (16 in) tall, and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each.

  In South Asian cuisine, split lentils (often with their hulls removed) are known as dal. Usually eaten with rice or rotis, the lentil is a dietary staple throughout regions of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Nepal. As a food crop, the majority of world production comes from Canada, India, and Australia.

• Legumes

  A legume ( or ) is a plant or its fruit or seed in the family Fabaceae (or Leguminosae). Legumes are grown agriculturally, primarily for their grain seed called pulse, for livestock forage and silage, and as soil-enhancing green manure. Well-known legumes include alfalfa, clover, peas, beans, chickpeas, lentils, lupin bean, mesquite, carob, soybeans, peanuts and tamarind. Fabaceae is the most common family found in tropical rainforests and in dry forests in the Americas and Africa.

  A legume fruit is a simple dry fruit that develops from a simple carpel and usually dehisces (opens along a seam) on two sides. A common name for this type of fruit is a pod, although the term “pod” is also applied to a number of other fruit types, such as that of vanilla (a capsule) and of the radish (a silique).

  Legumes are notable in that most of them have symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteria in structures called root nodules. For that reason, they play a key role in crop rotation.