If I told you that you could grow your own superfood right in your kitchen and it took very little effort, would you do it?
The good news is you can.
Sprouting is easy, it’s low cost and can be completely organic. Not to mention it would be a great mini science experiment for your kids to be involved with.
When you sprout your are accessing nutrients that are otherwise hard to get.
Most seeds and other plant resources are nutrient powerhouses however they contain anti-nutrients. Anti-nutrients are the plants natural defense mechanism that make it hard to digest (think beans the “magical fruit, the more you eat the more you…”). Naturally animals will not eat foods that upset their system.
It’s kind of like having a safe full of money but there is no way into the safe to get it! Not really harnessing the true potential!
To access the nutrients we have to find a way in, to open safe and break out the goods inside.
The way this can be done is by treating food before we eat it. The way we most commonly treat food is cooking with heat. But heat can also break down other compounds that would benefit us.
Although heat helps to access nutrients, there are better, easier options. These include but are not limited to soaking, sprouting and fermenting.
Sprouting involves soaking the seed and rinsing it with water for 2-5 days (depending on what your are sprouting) and let nature do the rest.
You will be left with a nutrient powerhouse that is highly bioavailable since this process decreases the anti-nutrients and other guy irritating compounds.
If you eat certain seeds, peas, beans that irritate your gut, sprouting them may be the answer to enjoy the benefits while not getting the irritations.
Personally speaking raw chickpeas can cause a lot of bloating and gut irritation for me but once sprouted they don’t.
Sprouting is so easy to do and something we should all be doing to improve our diets. Many other dietary improvements can have high barriers such as cost or accessibility. With sprouting these same barriers are very low as they are cheap, organic and easy to order online!