Sometimes I feel like the Grocery gods have it in for me. I go to the store, armed with a list and a meal planned out in my head, only to find they're out of key ingredients. Like the time I had my pregnant heart set on faux-tatoes only to discover they're out of cauliflower. Or when I had to have a pizza and they were out of whole wheat Boboli crusts. And it seems like every other trip they are entirely sold out of my brand of diet root beer.

So it should come as no shock that the day I decide to make a stockpile of black bean soup the store is completely out of black beans. They had every other bean imaginable: kidneys, pintos, canelli, garbanzo, small pink and navy. But no black beans.

I can see being sold out of one brand of beans, especially if they're on sale. But all black beans? That's just not possible. I checked a few different aisles for them until finally I found a few dusty cans in the organic food section. Granted one can costs three times as much as a regular can of black beans, but I had my mind made up. I was making soup.

I got home, lined up all my ingredients, got the big soup kettle out and started to dice to my hearts content. Canadian bacon, onions, red peppers, green peppers, garlic. When it was finally time to put the beans in, I opened the cans to rinse them and realized they looked a little different. I read the labels again and realized they were not regular black beans, but black soy beans. There wasn't much I could do about it now. I added extra seasonings to the soup to give it more kick, simmered it a little bit longer to thicken it up and it still came out pretty good.

Turns out, it's better than pretty good. It's actually healthier. Research suggests black soy beans may promote weight loss and prevent diabetes. What's more, they have half the carbs as regular black beans.

Granted I could never serve my black soy bean soup to a true Mexican food connoisseur, but for my and my family's health, this was a great find.