John Myers
Sprouts from sprouted seeds are a culinary enrichment for every day. With nothing more than water, the seeds, which can be stored well, become crispy, fresh sprouts within a few days. All you need is the right containers or a germinator and you can improve your diet enormously with sprouts.
Sprouts – alive and active
Sprouts are vital food that you could not wish for better and fresher. No vegetable, no matter how freshly harvested, can beat the freshness of sprouts – because sprouts continue to grow on the plate.
Sprouts, therefore, provide highly bioavailable vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, and a rich variety of phytochemicals.
In just a few days of germination, the sprouts multiply their content of the vitamins A, E and C contained in the seed as well as the vitamin B complex.
Living enzymes support the digestion of the sprout lover, and its metabolism and activate both the body’s energy production and repair measures at the cellular level.
Wanted! sprouts!
Already during the Second World War, Dr. Clive M. McKay, Professor of Nutrition at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, wrote an article on sprouts.
He began by saying:
Sought! Vegetables that grow in any climate, have the nutritional value of meat, are ripe in 3 to 5 days, can be sown any day of the year, do not need soil or sun, contain as much vitamin C as tomatoes, produce no waste products during cultivation and as fast as a chop can be cooked!
Here you have it! Sprouts fulfill all of these wishes – and many more, because they can be eaten raw, which is almost never the case with a cutlet.
Sprouts and their benefits
Most germinating seeds have a shelf life of many years. At a constant temperature of around 21 degrees Celsius, they can be kept for at least four years without losing any of their ability to germinate.
Sprouting seeds are also tiny, so they don’t take up much storage space. At the same time, however, they are extraordinarily productive. Depending on the type of seed, a large handful of fresh, crunchy sprouts emerge after a few days from a single spoonful of seed.
Sprouts are easy to store
Sprouting seeds for sprouts are best stored in a cool, dry, dark room in airtight and watertight storage containers that are strong enough to be rodent-proof (if you have them).
Even the germinated sprouts can be kept for a few days or weeks, depending on the season and cooling options. The best way to do this is to pack them in a sealable bowl and put them in the fridge or another cool place.
However, the temperatures should not fall below 10 degrees so that the sprouts are not damaged by the cold. Most sprouts will continue to grow in the fridge, just much more slowly than at higher temperatures.
Sprouting seeds are inexpensive
Germination seeds for sprouts are extremely inexpensive. If you also consider the fact that a tiny amount of seeds produces a large portion of vegetables, germinating seeds are doubly inexpensive.
However, the price usually depends on the quantity purchased, so you can save even more if you stock larger quantities.
Sprout cuisine: Varied and diverse
The sprout cuisine is also incredibly varied since there is an almost endless variety of sprouts and sprouts.
The following sprout seeds are particularly recommended because they are also very easy to grow:
Alfalfa, amaranth, fenugreek seeds, broccoli seeds, spelled, peas, garden cress, Kamut, chickpeas, pumpkin seeds, lentils, mung beans, quinoa, radishes, radishes, rye, arugula, mustard (yellow), sesame and sunflower seeds.
The sprout Ferrari among the sprout seeds
The Ferrari among sprouting seeds is broccoli. Broccoli sprouts are famous for their extra sulforaphane content. Special mention should be made of the calabrese variety of broccoli, which – in contrast to normal broccoli sprouts – has an exceptionally high proportion of sulforaphane.
This is an antioxidant that is already used in medicine, which is also found in ordinary broccoli vegetables but is found in much larger quantities in broccoli sprouts.
The amount of sulforaphane in broccoli sprouts is fifty times higher than that in broccoli vegetables. So you can get the same amount of antioxidants from about 30 grams of broccoli sprouts as you would from three pounds of broccoli vegetables.
Broccoli sprouts are available in the form of sprout powder that can be stored for anyone who finds the cultivation of sprouts to be too time-consuming. High-quality sprout powder is produced at temperatures below 40 degrees so that all ingredients are fully preserved.
Drawing sprouts yourself is child’s play
Hardly any vegetable can be grown as easily and quickly as sprouts. You don’t need a garden, a terrace, a balcony, not even a flower pot or soil.
The list of all the things you really need for sprout cultivation is much shorter: sprout seeds, sprouting jars (alternatively a sprouting device or small bowls), and water. Not more.
Sprouting jars are special jars that are roughly the size of mason jars, but the lid is made out of a strainer, so you can use it to rinse the sprouts very easily, simply by turning the jar upside down and draining the excess water from the perforated lid can flow.
Germination jars are available in health food stores, health food stores, or on the Internet. If you don’t want to buy sprouting jars, you can simply use different bowls and a fine sieve as an alternative. Only for cress seeds and the cultivation of wheat or barley grass do you need flat bowls instead of a bowl or germination jar or a so-called cress sieve for cress.
In each sprouting jar (or bowl) you fill some sprouting seeds and add enough water so that the seeds can soak overnight.
The next day, discard the water, rinse the seeds (if you don’t have a sprouting jar, put them in the colander to rinse) and then return them to the sprouting jars without water. The germinating seeds are rinsed in this way two to three times a day.
So the seeds are only in the standing water for the first night. They are then only slightly wetted with water, namely with the water residues that have stuck to the seeds after rinsing.
Grow cress and wheatgrass sprouts yourself
The Garden cress is sown on two layers of kitchen paper that have been soaked in water. Grasses for grass juice can be grown in the same way (e.g. wheat grass, barley grass, Kamut grass, alfalfa grass, etc.). Don’t forget to water regularly.
Although grasses are easy to grow, juicing is not very productive. So you need a lot of grass, which you can best grow in suitable germination devices, such as e.g. B. in the Easygreen germinator.
An alternative here is to stock up on high-quality grass powders, e.g. B. Barley grass powder, better barley grass juice powder, wheat grass juice powder, spelled grass powder, and Kamut grass powder.
Mixed with water and some natural organic vanilla, they make revitalizing drinks that provide us with all the beneficial properties of chlorophyll and the numerous secondary plant substances found in grass.
Sprouts – Harvest after 24 hours
Many sprouts can be eaten after 24 hours, e.g. B. mung bean sprouts, sunflower sprouts, or grain sprouts.
However, most sprouts are harvested after 3 to 7 days, some even after 12 days. The latter is the case when a particularly high proportion of green, i.e. leafy, is desired.
Draw sprouts yourself – what do I do with them?
Sprouts are very versatile and can be transformed into all kinds of delicious, healthy, and alkaline dishes:
- Sprouts become a sprouts salad with a dressing.
- Sprouts can also be mixed into any other salad.
- Sprouts are blanched in vegetable broth to make a sprout soup.
- Sprouts also go well in green smoothies. To do this, mix them with water and fruit in an ordinary household blender.
- Sprouts are lightly steamed as a vegetable side dish.
- Sprouts can be juiced and thus – mixed with other vegetable juices – turn into extremely healing and concentrated juices.
- Sprouts also fit on any sandwich.
- Sprouts decorate dishes of all kinds.
- Sprouts can be processed into sprout “cheese”. To do this, mix sprouts (e.g. pumpkin or sunflower seed sprouts) with a little water, chop or mix in a blender and leave in a warm place for 8 hours. The sprout paste starts to ferment. Then season with salt or tamari, some garlic, and herbs, and serve.
- Sprouts are great for turning into seedling bread.
- Sprouts mixed with onions, herbs, and nuts can be used as a filling, pie, or spread.
- Sprouts emergency menu: mix sprouts with nuts, mix with dried herbs, some vinegar, and oil and enjoy.
Sprouts help survive
Sprouts can even be described as real survival food.
Because in the form of germinating seeds, they can be stored for months, if not years. They require little space, no refrigeration, and can be made edible in a short time with nothing but water.
So they are THE solution for times of crisis – if they should ever occur (knock on wood!) – and therefore absolutely belong in every crisis package.
It generally contains mostly heavily industrially processed dry products that only provide natural vital substances in a modest way, not to mention secondary plant substances, living enzymes, and antioxidants.
While you can still harvest fruit and vegetables from your own garden in the event of a supply crisis after an earthquake, for example (if the garden is still there), this is no longer recommended after a nuclear accident.
Fruit and vegetables are then radioactive and should not be eaten for the time being – unless they come from a greenhouse. So does that mean that we can only eat soup powder, instant drinks, and canned food?
If the crisis package is filled with sprout seeds and other seeds, then the menu will be varied and full of vital substances even in extreme situations.
So, eating sprouts can literally save your life in times of food shortages and save you from having to eat only canned food and empty calories from floury and sugary products.
The sprouts will provide you with everything your body and your immune system need to survive even extreme phases in good health.
But please do not wait for times of crisis before you start sprouting. That would be too bad! It is best to start today and enjoy a different variety of sprouts every day.
