It is simple and inexpensive to sprout a vast amount of grains and seeds in your own home. Sprouts are going to be one of the healthiest additions to your meals, especially for the cost of the seeds. Sprouts will provide active enzymes, in which are very important to having a healthy body. The sprouts are alive due to the process of sprouting up to the moment that you eat them and it causes the seeds nutrients to be released and broken down, so that they are easier to absorb and digest.
There is quite a bit of different vegetable seeds that can be sprouted. These vegetable seeds include broccoli, onion, corn cabbage, mustard, lentils, kale, radish, garlic, chives, watercress, pumpkin, green peas and beans. Along with sprout able grains such as brown rice, oats, barley, rye, kamut khorasan, spelt, wheat berries, amaranth, buckwheat, millet, triticale and quinoa. And you do not want to forget the grasses and herbs including clover, alfalfa, chia, fenugreek and anise. As well as a couple of seeds like sunflower and sesame.
Sprouts have an abundance of use in cooking. Wheat berries that have been sprouted can be grown into wheat grass, which can be used to make some incredibly healthy food. Sprouts can be used to put some unique and delicious flavors to foods like salads. Raw foodists can use a mixture of grains they have sprouted to make raw cereals, breads and crackers.
When sprouting you want to make sure you have organic seeds to use. You are going to need a container that is not made of wood, metal or plastic. Some good containers would be a ceramic jar or a large glass. You are going to want to use filtered, cold water that is about 2 or 3 times the volume of the amount of seeds. Soak the seeds in the water, large seeds 8 to 12 hours and the small seeds 4 to 6 hours.
The large seeds should fill up about 1/8 of the jar and small seeds should simply cover the bottom. You will need a lid in which you can dump the water and keep the seeds. You can use cheesecloth or mesh sprouting lids. After the seeds have soaked for their appropriate time dump out the water and put back down the container upside down somewhat tilted so that air can get into the container. Make sure they stay moist, but not to damp or they will go bad and have mold growth.
Make sure to keep them in a room about 70 degrees Fahrenheit overnight. You are going to want to rinse and then drain the water about 2 to 4 times a day. After about 3 days they should be one and a half times the original length of the seed.
To give them greater nutritional value put them in indirect sunlight for at least 6 hours before they are finished. Do not do that with bean sprouts though it will ruin them.
Then to harvest the sprouts you will need to soak them in cold water until the hulls float to the top of it. Throwaway the hulls and rinse the sprouts. And finally your sprouts are ready to eat!
