Living foods and sprouting

[Guest guest]

was listening to a radio show fundraising event

yesterday and they had health guru Gary Null talking about

health issues for more than 6 hours. It was great and I

listened to or recorded most of it.<br><br>One of Gary's

guest speakers owned the Hippocrates Institute in

Florida. That's the place of Ann Wigmore (wheat grass)

fame. The topic was " Living Foods " which is what I

think I should have named this club instead of just

" Raw Food " . The speaker (I forget his name) pointed

out that there are different tiers of raw foods. At

the very top was sprouted seeds, nuts, grains and

beans. The reason for this top tier was because these

foods were very much alive and still growing right up

to the time we put them in our mouth. Maximum

nutrition and benefits. In the next tier down were algae

and seaweeds. In the next tier down were fruits and

vegetables. Still good stuff to eat but not as nutritious as

the sprouts. <br><br>Now I don't want to eat just

sprouts. Having a varied diet is important. But I do want

to increase my sprout intake for myself and family.

I have a small garden where I grow organic salads

and vegetables (my next house will have a much bigger

garden!) It takes 50-70 days for most items in the garden

to mature along with a lot of hard work and

cultivating... and it's worth it. But when you think about the

nutrition in sprouts and how they mature in just 1-5 days

without soil or weeding or fertilizer... how they cost

just pennies a serving... and how you can grow them

all year round in your bathroom or kithen... they

start to look like an extremely attractive addition to

the raw or living foods diet.<br><br>I've sprouted

for years off and on and have almonds and sunflower

seeds sprouting now. I'd like to really expand my

efforts in sprouting ...perhaps 5 - 10 batches going so I

have variety and fresh batches each day or two. The

glass sprouting jars with the holes in the lids don't

work for me. The sprouts seem to be too wet and rot

easily. Right now I'm using a large wire mesh strainer

over a plastic bowl with a loose lid on top. I can

easily stack two sprouting bowls with what I have even

though nothing matches. It's quick and easy to lift the

strainer out with the sprouts in it to put under the

faucet for a quick rinse. Then when you put the strainer

back in the bowl the excess water drips down away from

the sprouts. The lid helps to keep the sprouts damp

but not wet. Important to keep it easy to do because

if it's not you won't do it. The fancy sprouting

machines I see for sale on the Internet are too expensive,

at least for now. Maybe down the road I'll invest in

one of them. But for now I'd like to find a matched

set of bowls and lids and strainers that I can stack

about 5 high on the counter. Then I can get down to

business and let you know with which I have most success.

<br><br>I sprout the almonds to make almond milk for my

infant son. I'd like to sprout rice and make rice milk

too. I'm very happy with sprouting sunflower seeds. It

only takes 1 1/2- 2 days to harvest and you can eat

them plain, on salads, juiced with carrots or blended

in a " power " drink.<br><br>So I hope I've encourged

someone out there to try sprouting. Seems to me some of

you college folks out there would find this a more

plausible thing to do then conventional

farming.<br><br>-OrionsDad