When the Beans Go Dry

I love beans, but recently I've been considering which are better dry or canned beans?

In the past I've always felt dry beans were better because you can flavor them more directly. The advantage to canned beans is of course convenience. I'm beginning to turn more to canned beans and here's why.

How long have those dry beans been on the shelf? The whole point to dry beans is they're picked fresh and cured till dry and stored for latter use. The problem being when were they dried? There are some examples out there that these dry beans were dried decades ago and that's a bit of a disturbing fact. I'm sure the world dry bean association will tell me that it's fine for beans to sit for that length but I'm not buying.

Until I can investigate this issue further I will be using canned beans. More importantly though, I'll be growing my own fresh beans this year in the garden.