My parents would say you just haven’t been hungry enough. Their parents lived through the great depression. I wouldn’t know, but I hear people are having to make food/medicine trade offs, which seems more dire that flavor/texture preference tradeoffs.

That said, I don’t know a protein source that’s as available and cheap as beans, but you might try insects if cheap is the priority or poultry if availability is your priority.

You can buy a large bag of frozen vegetable blend and steam it fairly simply. You can either steam single serving and keep the rest frozen OR steam the whole bag in bulk, and refrigerate for up to a week, reheating single servings as you need them.

Best of luck.