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Sprouting seeds, nuts and grains is a way of greatly increasing their nutritional value and makes them easier to digest. For example, most sprouts double their protein content and have highly increased levels of vitamins! Sprouting seeds is simple and you don't need a lot of fancy equipment. Here's how:
1. Get some seeds, grains, nuts or legumes you want to sprout. Some grocery stores will have sproutable legumes, grains, seeds and nuts marked as such in their bulk section. Do not use seeds that have been treated with chemicals. My favorite place to get seeds online is Sprout People. They have an amazing assortment (80 varieties, 78 of which are organic) and tons of information for all levels of sprouters.
2. Take your dry raw seeds (legumes, nuts etc.) and soak them to bring them out of dormancy. You can soak your seeds in a bowl or in the container you plan to sprout them in. You can not use too much water, only too little. In general seeds will soak up to 2-3 times as much water as there are seeds and will greatly increase in size. Different seeds will need to soak for different amounts of time and you can mix seeds that have close soak and sprout times. Click here for a soak and sprout time chart.
Hint: hot water will decrease soaking time and help seeds that are not absorbing water well.
3. Once you are finished soaking skim off any seeds that are still floating. Drain out the left over water and then rinse your seeds with a good amount of cool, rapidly running water. Again, drain out as much left over water as possible from the rinse. You can easily do this by putting your seeds in a large mouth jar with a piece of cheesecloth over the top held on with a rubber band. This allows your sprouts to breath and helps you drain them easily. You can also purchase a small sprouter container that comes with an internal strainer so your sprouts don’t sit in water and rot. Rinsing and draining well will make all the difference in your sprouts so be thorough!
4. Rinse and drain your seeds as described above at least 2-3 times a day. The importance of regular rinsing and complete draining cannot be overstated! Depending on the sprout variety they will be ready to eat anywhere from 12 hrs to 2 weeks. You can taste them as they grow and decide when you like them best. See the above sprout and soak time chart for an idea of when your sprouts will be ready.
There are tons of recipes for using sprouts out there but my favorite way to have them is with a high quality extra virgin olive oil and Celtic sea salt! Yum!
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