Sprouting / Germinando

    

I am sure you have all heard of the benefits of eating sprouts, some call them "dinamo of light" and as well as incorporating them in your diet by adding them to raw soups and salads, let me stress the importance of the source of the sprouts thelselves.

If they're not organic you might as well save yourself the money and the effort and considering the price of organic, a good solution is sprouting at home.

I have thrown away lots of sprouts before finding the right way.
I have followed different techniques: mason jars, alluminium tray with a net on top, sprouting bags, but invitabily all of them would go bad after the 3rd day (when they're actually meant to be edible) and one day, all of a sudden, I was browsing through the shelves of the natural shop I alway go to and my eye fell onto a "sprouting station" valued at 25€ and reminded me of a striainer.

I put my thinking cap stright on and as soon as I got back home got out a striner and a bowl and I tried with soy seeds.

Having succeeded I went to the pound shop and bouth an extra strainer (1€) and as per bowls, I bet in every household there are about 5 bowls too many, in which case you needn't spend any extra money, let alone a 25€ sprouter in which you can only do 1/4 of a handful of only one seed at a time.

TECHNIQUE:

Bearing in mind that seeds multiply 3 times when sprouted, take a hanful of seeds (to start with I suggest soyu or lentils, as they're the easiest to sprout) and put them in a 1 litre mason jar topped up with water overnight.

The following morning rinse throughly and transfer them to a striner with a bowl underneath as they drip.

Twice a day you have to water them, so fill the bowl (containing the strainer with the sprouts) with water, let it sit for 1/2 and hour, then throw away the water (perfectly usable to water the plants, flush the toilet, etc.) , rinse throughly and let them sit in a warm and darkish place. (At this stage the only important thing is that they don't get direct sunlight                                                                                                                                                

Here you can see the different stages of development of the soy sprout, after 24 hour you should start to see the white bit of the bean, which is the beginning to sprout.

Here, after 3 days, they're edible, and if you have enough patience, you can remove all the green bits with a table spoon (I can usually manage 50% of it, then I go mental)

What I do, after day 3 I take half a handful every day for my salad and let the rest grow.

When there's a little left, I start soaking a new batch.

And then below it's about as big as they get, in about a week, afterwards they start to get dry.
So if you have some left over, store them in a air tight container and put them in the fridge

                   

Here above are the 2 stages of lentils.

It is very important to rinse the sprouts very well and throughly and move them upwards in the strainer so that they can all breathe and grow.

HAPPY SPROUTING EVERYONE!