Can you eat black bean pods?
Accordingly, are black bean pods edible?
You can eat the beans now as fresh green beans, but I don't know how tasty they will be. If you want to grow them for black beans, let the mature pods stay on the plant until they are brown then pick them. You can dry them in the pods until you have enough to make it worthwhile to shell them.
Secondly, can you eat fresh black beans?
That's not raw. And even if they were raw, you'd be fine. Beans can be eaten as fresh green beans, shell beans, dried beans, or inbetweens . Certain varieties are optimized to one end or the other, but they're all Phasoleus, and you can eat them all any way.
All legumes, including black beans, contain a compound called phytohemagglutinin, which can be toxic in high amounts. This is a major concern with red kidney beans, which contain such high levels of this compound that the raw or undercooked beans may be toxic when consumed.