A-Z sprouting benefits Articles

Growing sprouts is easy once you know how and get the hang of it. They're mostly grown from grains, seeds and legumes. However, not all grains, seeds and legumes can be sprouted.

This guide will walk you through the steps of growing sprouts, and it's a great way to include your family in a fun, healthy practice.

What Are Sprouts?

Sprouts are the colourful plant-like growth which forms when certain foods are soaked in a small amount of water. Soaking begins a natural process called germination. Nature uses seeds, grain, nuts, and legumes to grow new plants, and it all begins with a germination process.

When these foods become wet, it catalyses growth enzymes to begin a chemical process for the growth of a new plant. This is called a sprout, and sprouts are highly dense with enzymes, vitamins, minerals and phytochemicals.

In addition to being a living, enzyme–rich food, sprouts have many vitamins and minerals. By sprouting these foods, the vitamin and mineral content increases.

For instance, the vitamin A content in sprouts doubles, the B vitamins will increase 5 – 10 times, and vitamin C will also increase.

Once sprouted, the protein in grains, seeds, and legumes also become more digestible, and therefore more bio-available. This is especially important for those who are vegetarians.

What Can Be Sprouted?

• Beans and Legumes: lentils, peas, chick peas, mung beans, navy beans, pinto beans, black beans, lima beans, adzuki beans
• Seeds: alfalfa, clover, fenugreek
• Cereal Grains: oat, corn, rice, barley, wheat
• Pseudo Cereal Grains: quinoa, amaranth, buckwheat
• Oil Seeds: sesame, sunflower, flaxseed
• Nuts: almond, hazelnut
• Brassica Family Seeds: broccoli, cabbage, watercress, mustard, radish, daikon, arugula, mizuna, turnip, tatsoi

Certain grains and legumes can be poisonous, harmful or just plain unable to sprout and should be avoided: soy and kidney beans, white rice, oat grouts, tomato, potato, paprika, eggplant, and rhubarb.

Most sprouted beans and legumes have hemagglutinins, which inhibit the absorption of fats and proteins. Hemagglutinins, however, are destroyed by cooking, so these sprouts are best cooked in curries, soups, stir fries or made into a dip or pate.

Steps For Growing Sprouts

1. Rinse the seeds, nuts, legumes or grains. This removes any debris or mucilaginous material that may have grown if the food was in contact with any moisture.
2. To germinate, cover and soak seeds, nuts or grain in water for 20 min to 12 hours, depending on the size and density of the food. Once soaked for a sufficient time they are ready to sprout.
3. To sprout, rinse the germinated seeds, legumes and grain. Then add enough water that they are wet but not covered. You want some air contact at this point, but only enough water to prevent drying out. This combination of water and air will begin the sprouting phase, and you will begin to see bits of white and green begin to form. Some seeds can even sprout beautiful colours like pinks and purples. Be sure to continue to rinse the seeds, grain or legumes 2 to 4 times daily until you are happy with the amount of sprouting. Then move them into the fridge to slow the process down.

Soaking increases the water content in the seed, legume or grain bringing them out of their dormant state called quiescence.

It is important to drain, rinse and add fresh water two to four times daily to ensure negative bacterial growth will not occur.

Each seed, grain or legume has its own time it takes to sprout. This is variable depending on conditions such as air temperature, water temperature and size of the seed, grain or legume. Generally, the warmer the air temperature, the faster the spouts will germinate and grow. Refrigeration will slow and even halt the sprouting process.

The following is a reference guide for how long to soak legumes, seeds and grains for.

Nutritional Information

Using Sprouts

Sprouts are great on salads, on sandwiches, or blended in health shakes. There is just no wrong way of eating them.

One exception is that they are best eaten raw. Cooking them can neutralize their beneficial enzymes. The exception to this is the beans and legumes listed above. These are best eaten cooked.

What is Sprouting?

Sprouting is the process of soaking, draining and then rinsing seeds at regular intervals until they germinate or "sprout". Sprouting can be done commercially or in the privacy of your own home quite easily. Common beans for sprouting include mung beans, alfalfa, chickpeas, barley, lentils and azuki beans.

What Are The Benefits of Sprouting?

Very simply put, sprouts offer the highest amount and quality of vitamins, minerals, proteins, fibre and enzymes per unit of calorie. Among its many nutritional claims, sprouting is shown to increase the content of B vitamins, vitamin E and A. Some argue they are the most nutritious food we can eat. As sprouting or germination occurs, the seed is transformed into only essential content, while the nutritionally undesirable content is broken down, producing energy or power to change from seed to sprout. In this case, as a seed becomes a sprout, the protein or amino acid content is increased, while the carbohydrate content is decreased or broken down to provide the seed with the energy to grow.

Sprouts are a living food. They continue to gain in vitamins and nutritional content even after they are harvested and to a certain extent when refrigerated. Compare that to store bought vegetables, which start to lose nutritional content as soon as they are picked, and at times long before they arrive at the store. As an added benefit, sprouts are very easily assimilated and digested, while improving the overall efficiency of digestion. This is particularly important in the case of protein, which often requires more work to digest. Sprouting significantly increases the protein content of many beans, while making it one of the easiest forms of protein to digest.

A study conducted on Salba®, a specific brand of Chia, found that 3.5 oz of Salba® contained as much omega-3 as 28 oz of salmon, as much calcium as 3 cups of milk, and as much iron as 5 cups of raw spinach. Chia is also gluten-free, a bonus for those with gluten sensitivities who have a hard time increasing fibre consumption. All that nutrition and it's also low in calories.

How To Make Your Own Sprouts

The most important tip when sprouting is to make sure that the container you choose to use allows water to drain from it. A jar with a mesh or cheesecloth top works well. If the sprouts are not drained in the recommended time and allowed to sit in the water, they will quickly rot. Each seed has slightly varied soaking and sprouting schedules, but in general:

1. Soak the seeds (in the case of mung beans, you soak for anywhere from 8-14 hours)
2. Drain the seeds and let them sit
3. Rinse and drain the beans 2-3 times/day until the beans have sprouted. (Mung beans only take about 1 day to sprout.) 
4. You may put them in the fridge to prevent rotting once sprouted for a maximum of two days. 

If not used within three days, the seeds usually go sour. As with most things, the fresher the better, so try to eat your sprouts as soon as they are ready – add them to your salad, or make a live granola with sprouts, soaked nuts, and dried fruits.

Sprouting is not dependent on weather or time of year. Sprouts can be grown from January to December. Sprouting does not work well in full sun, as the seeds tend to dry out. A windowsill with indirect sun is the perfect spot to sprout. Mung beans can actually be grown in the dark, although it has been reported that they lose some of their nutritional value.

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