The Sprout Project

There are about a bazillion reasons to eat sprouts, other than the fact that they taste good.  By sprouting your legumes, seeds, and grains, you make them much easier to digest, and because they are easier to digest, you absorb more nutrients.  Sprouting also ups the nutrient count of your seed (legume, grain) exponentially; sprouts are the most reliable, year round source of vitamin C.  Sprouts continue to gain vitamins AFTER you have "harvested" them.  Sprouts are a living food, and even after you have refrigerated them, they continue to grow, thus their vitamin content continues to increase.

I love sprouts, so I sprout my own.  This is a real money saver, actually.  While sprouts are not exceptionally expensive in the stores, dried seeds/beans/etc., bought in bulk, are even more economical.  They can be used exactly when you need them, and you can make exactly how much you want.  You can also mix and match to end up with a mixture of all your favorites.

I've only been doing this for a couple of months, because I always thought I needed to have fancy sprouting equipment.  I believe I've mentioned before that we operate on a budget, and I couldn't see my way clear to buying specialty equipment just to produce something only I was going to eat anyway.  Then someone told me that I don't need anything special at all.  If I could find a glass jar, some cheese cloth, and a rubber band, I'd be set.  So I made the boys peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch for an entire week so that I could have the jelly jar, and then I started my very first sprouts.  I've been doing it ever since.

How to Sprout at Home:

1.  Fill clean glass jar about 1/3 full of your seeds/beans/legumes of choice.  Don't fill the jar too full.  They'll grow a lot.

2.  Cover seeds with clean cool water.

3.  Cover mouth of jar with cheese cloth and secure with rubber band.

4.  Soak seeds over night.

5.  The next morning, drain water from jar.  The cheese cloth will catch the seeds. 

6.  Fill and drain again.  Make sure to use cold water. Warm or hot water will stop the growing process and kill the sprouts.  Give the jar a few good shakes to remove as much water as possible.  You want your seeds to be damp but not swimming.  Too  much water will make the seeds spoil and rot.

7.  Prop your jar at an angle so that the excess water will continue to drain.  You can prop it against the wall on a saucer, in a bowl, whatever works for you.

8.  Cover jar with a dish towel.

9.  Rinse and drain three times a day.

10.  On the last day, remove the towel and put the jar in a windowsill to green up a bit.

11.  Dump out onto dish towel and gently pat dry before storing in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Here I have sprouted brown lentils, red lentils, chick peas, mung beans, and quinoa.

The time it takes depends on what you're sprouting, but four or five days is the general rule.  You'll start to see small "tails" form.  When those tails are about an inch or so long, then your sprouts are probably done.  The best way to figure out when they're ready for harvest is to taste them.

You can use them in many different way:  in wraps or on sandwiches instead of lettuce, in tacos, as a salad topping, or as the salad itself.  My husband and I call the mixture above Sprout Salad, and I grow it specifically as a salad.  Sometimes I put it on top of other left over things:  red cabbage, zucchini and tomatoes, spinach, green beans, etc.  If there's nothing left over, I just dump it in a bowl and put some dressing on it.  For dressing I mist it with olive oil and either squeeze the juice of half a lemon over it or add a couple of shakes of balsamic vinegar.  My husband eats his with Italian salad dressing. 

Enjoy!