Tasty, Tasty, Sprouts Is eating sprouting seeds really good for you?
Hey, eat your sprouts they are good for you.
It’s quite likely that if you are reading this you know about sprouting seeds. It’s a quick and cheap way of getting fresh and nutritious food and it’s bigged up by TV’s very own Gillian Mc Keith. I’ve been sprouting beans and seeds for years and am an example of vigorous health and fitness.
If you don’t know what it’s all about - you can sprout various peas, beans and seeds in a jar with a muslin cloth over the top. Wash the seeds, stick them in the jar, rinse them each day and three to six days later you can eat them. Easy. You can go one better like me and buy a mini greenhouse thing from the health food shop, it’s a group of trays that sit on top of each other, the bottom of the trays have slots to let water run out. This way you could have a ready supply. I don’t get a ready supply as I usually miss out that whole bit where you rinse them each day, remember to look at the seeds at all or get round to eating them before they’ve gone mouldy. The trays need to be washed after each use as well but the slots make this really fiddly, with bits of seed sprout getting wedged in them, which also puts me off a bit. But if you are better organised than me and actually get round to eating your sprouting bounty here are a few things to watch out for: E.Coli, Salmonella, lowered immunity, burning skin and poisoning.
The main problem is that sprouting seeds takes place in a nice warm damp container which is just great for bacteria, they love it. It might not be as likely as food poisoning from dodgy cooked meat but people have caught E.Coli and Salmonella from sprouts, even ending up in hospital. In the USA, where it’s a bigger fad than here in the UK, nearly half fresh food food-poisoning is from sprouts. In the UK, sprout producers are starting to add microbiological monitoring to their processing and are rinsing their sprouts in chlorine solution to try and sanitise them to stop Salmonella, organic suppliers helpfully just check theirs for grit. If you buy seeds and sprout them yourself that doesn’t help, the bacteria is from the seeds and you can rinse as much as you like but bacteria can stay in small creases in the seeds and even inside the seed itself. What does help is cooking. It might not suit the raw food ideal but frying sprouts for a few minutes or boiling for about 10 mins should sort the bacteria.
The worst offender for food poisoning so far is alfalfa seeds, they might be worth skipping all together as they also contain an amino acid that is toxic to humans and lowers immunity. Buckwheat can make your skin think you are a vampire from a bad horror flick and make it so sensitive to sunlight it can begin to burn and blotch, which is not a healthy look. Ok for sprouting seem to be grains eg wheat and barley; some seeds such as radish, sunflower, bamboo, burdock, hemp (fenugreek seems ok if cooked). Uncooked beans can be dicey (kidney and haricot beans are a real no no as they are very poisonous raw) Adzuki, lentils, and chick peas seem ok cooked and in moderation. Mung beans seem the safest even raw.
So if you are going to sprout – know where the seeds come from if you can, wash them thoroughly, rinse twice a day, if it’s not mustard and cress grow them in the dark (this avoids toxins from the clorifyl), refrigerate if you are not using them immediately and cook them before eating. Alternatively live on pizza.
If you found this article interesting you might also like Hopi Ear Candles This article came from issue 12 of Now or Never To get a copy of issue 12 check out the Shop |
|