Frankly lentils/beans/rice (cooked nicely with oil and seasoning of course) is way better than a lot of the garbage people eat for much more money.

Seasoning is something people seem to miss a lot. Just garlic powder, paprika, chili powder, and of course salt and pepper can bring a dish up to something you could see eating at a restaurant.

Right? It's not even that hard. In Indian cooking the 'tadka' method is used for lentils and beans (also called chonk, chaunce, vaghar, etc.). It is basically heated oil with some spices thrown in and gently fried (not burnt), this tempering is then mixed in with the rest of food. Here is a good example:

https://youtu.be/xEeoZYpa5wY?t=95 (it's in Hindi, but you don't really need to understand necessarily, looks authentic).

If you can't prepare lentils in a way that you'd describe as tasty, then you owe it to yourself to look up any of the thousands of youtube videos or recipes that prepare it a thousand different ways.

You can make some extremely delicious meals with lentils, especially yellow and red split lentils, given the right spices, which are also pretty cheap.