I was the same... brown lentils all the way. But I can find red and yellow here in the stores....

I use the small green french lentils when I make a salad with them...I think they have better firmness and flavor for that...the brown I use in soup or "meat" loaf.

We love lentils, but I forget about them when I'm thinking about what to make to eat and don't make them as often as I could. Love them in soup, but I also have a recipe called Lentils Mexicali that is really good. I haven't done it, but it could be used as a filling for tacos, enchiladas or burritos for those who are vegetarians.

We use brown, red and yellow. The last few years, we've found that split pea soup causes both of us to have severe indigestion which is a shame because it's a favorite around here. Lentils have made a good substitute for split peas. I'll have to look for green lentils as they would make the faux split pea soup look more like split pea soup.

I love split peas and beans of all kinds but they create intestinal gas for me. Not indigestion, just gas.

Some time, I don't remember when or from what source, I picked up a method touted as a way to "de-gas" dry legumes. I don't know if it works completely but it does help a lot:

Put the legumes in a pot with a lot of cold water, enough so that the volume of the water is at least 2X the volume of the beans or peas, more is better. Bring to a boil, turn off the heat and cover, and let it sit for 1 hour. Pour out all the water. For smaller pieces like peas, they'll be close to cooked. Larger beans will need a bit more time, resume cooking in fresh water or whatever liquid is used for the dish. I do this every time and it seems to make a difference. It's not much trouble, only bringing a larger volume of water to a boil than you would use if just cooking them.

Oh, and one other essential ingredient - Beano. Sold in grocery stores, Take 2 tablets as you begin to eat the peas or beans.

These two steps seem to be effective to protect me from intestinal gas. When going out to eat Mexican food (and I love pinto and refried beans), I take the little Beano bottle with me.

I second the small green French lentils. For me many of the other lentils taste the same which is starchy. These actually have a flavor that is not found in the others. They are also sometimes sold as small grey lentils.

I like red lentils--especially in a Moroccan soup I make--and another favorite are the small dark brown Pardina lentils. They're not always easy to find here, so I recently bought a 5# bag from Amazon. I like other lentils too. I grew up loving lentil soup.

I bought red lentils the other day to make this soup:

https://www.onceuponachef.com/recipes/indian-red-lentil-soup.html

I use black lentils when I make this Dal:

https://smittenkitchen.com/2017/03/black-lentil-dal/

I never knew what a lentil was until I was an adult--for us it was pinto beans, navy beans, or great northern beans, with ham, and canned kidney beans went into chili.

I use the green lentils because they are less expensive. Those red lentils are so pretty, but they mostly lose that pretty color when cooked. I try to throw a handful of lentils into any kind of soup--bean, veg, chicken, potato, chili.

Does anyone put a few pinches of baking soda into the pot of bean soup when it has finished cooking? I heard years ago that it will get rid of some of the gas forming compounds. It foams up, so seems to make sense. If I've forgotten to soak beans overnight, I bring them to a boil in a large amount of water for 5 minutes, then let sit for an hour. The soaking water is then discarded, and fresh water added.

The lentils that arrived were more yellow looking than red. A couple pounds of them are currently cooking in a pot with an onion, the leftover ham bone from Thanksgiving, and some Sharwoods curry powder. Hoping for a nice pot of soup by this evening.