Generally I find American marketing of cleanliness and sterility risible. The beans do smell weird just when freshly soaked, I agree. But the sourness I myself detected when I let that one batch lay out smelled about dead on like my sourdough, which is to say an acetobacter and lactobacillus mix, which is definitely not going to hurt anybody not already on their deathbed and is the same kind of stuff people fork over gobs of cash to buy in the form of fancy kefir and probiotic supplements (although you kill it when you cook it.) At some point, all your food came out of the mud, or rolled in it, so don't be overly afraid of bacteria.
Semi-fermented chickpeas might actually taste more interesting once roasted for snacks, too; I recently made naan from a batch of totally overblown sourdough the boyfriend made and let go to pot, since I realized the biotics sort of imitate the acidity of the yogurt often used in that bread. Due to the strong (overwhelming!!) presence of lactobacillus in the dough and the totally annihilated gluten, once cooked, the crackly crunchy loaves had a flavor arrestingly - and addictingly - like cheez-its!
What do you use your chickpeas for? I've hardly ever been able to do anything but hummus and dips because I like it too much to not make.
Afterthought: protip for hummus fans - make big giant batches of beans, sprouted/fermented or not, and then once cooked freeze them in single layers in sandwich bags or the bottom of a container. You can jumble them up and pack them close after that step, but it makes dumping out precisely what you need a lot easier when they freeze as individuals. Better in every way than canned beans, especially nutritionally & economically, while still stupidly, obnoxiously convenient in just yanking a bin or bag from the freezer.
