Sprouts

Yesterday I made yogurt and started sprouts (see Recipes label for homemade yogurt). I've been growing sprouts for over 30 years.

In the late 60's, moreso early 70's, I was a Hippie. That era brought about the Health Food movement. As a teen I didn't usually eat sandwiches, preferring sandwich fillings alone. My favorite was, and still is, to take sandwich meats and a cheese slice and roll up around a large helping of sprouts. All that just to say I bless the movement that started making sprouts available. I actually love snacking on handfuls of sprouts.

When Monte and me were first married we were readying ourselves to move to Australia to do geology in the Outback. The place was so remote there would be no fresh produce. So I learned how to make sprouts and was going to take a lot of sprouting seeds with us. The project fell through, but had we gone, Heather would have been born there, and who knows where living across the world would have taken us.

Back then I'd put about a Tablespoon of seeds in a quart jar to soak about 8 hours. I cut a piece of pantyhose and rubber-banded it to the top of the jar as a screen so I could drain and keep rinsing the seeds several times a day for about 5 days, keeping the jar on its side out of sunlight, but on the counter near the sink. Once nice and green then I'd cap the jar and store them in the refrigerator.

I made sprouts this way for years. Then I've bought various sprouting trays over the years. Most of these 'recipes' still require that you soak the seeds about 8 hours so the seed volume increases and the seeds don't fall through the holes in the trays.

I bought a new sprouter I ordered from Johnnyseeds.com that doesn't require pre-soaking the seeds. It comes with 3 sprout trays. I like its way of watering/rinsing the seeds. After experimenting a bunch, I'm settling on premixing my favorite combination of seeds - alfalfa, broccoli, and radish (spunky) - and starting just one tray at a time so there's 3 stages of growth. My picture shows 4 trays because I have two of these sprouters to keep us with fresh sprouts constantly, and not have to store them in the refrigerator for long at all - so they will be truly fresh and ALIVE!

With sprouts you get live enzymes and natural vitamins. Fresh sprouted seeds give you an increased vitamin, mineral, and protein content by 30-600%. They turn from seeds into extremely nutritious vegetables. My top tray has wheat kernels. These can be eaten in just a few days when the sprout is about as long as the kernel - sweet (not grassy like wheatgrass). The B-complex content in germinated wheat increases 600% in the first 72 hours. Vitamin E content is tripled and vitamin C increases sixfold, and who knows what other micro-nutrients are created out of the 25,000 science has now recognized in vegetables and fruits.

Sprouts can be juiced. We add them to salads, sandwiches, wraps, tacos, oriental dishes, omelets, and just as a side dish or snack. Creative Monte likes them on his whole grain waffles with yogurt and real maple syrup. I draw the line there!