Day 40: Sprouts and Sprouters
The Sprouting Book by Ann Wigmore, Sprouts and Sprouting: Nutrition You Can Grow At Home
Welcome to Day 40!
Today you have the opportunity to learn about sprouts—foods that you can grow yourself, fresh, and at home! An introduction to the advantages of eating sprouts by Dr. Ann Wigmore is included, along with some myths dispelled by Dr. Gabriel Cousens, and a wonderful sprouter used by the Sproutman, Steve Meyerowitz, shown and explained with photos and ordering information.
We use sprouts in our daily cuisine to add youthful vibrancy to salads, and for the wonderful texture they provide to our dishes. Sprouts are a great garnish for almost anything, and children enjoy them, as well. Many lightweight backpackers are now making sprouts in bags hung from their packs, in order to include more nutrient-dense fresh greens in their diet while trekking!
From The Sprouting Book by Ann Wigmore:
Sprouts, while inexpensive and easy to grow, afford one of the most concentrated but truly natural sources of vitamins, minerals, enzymes, and amino acids (protein) known. They are also biogenic, alive, and capable of transferring their life energy to your body.
Biogenic foods are foods that when planted will create new life. All raw, unsprouted seeds, beans, grains, and nuts are biogenic. When they are sprouted and eaten, they provide the body with a form of living energy-a composite of vital food factors not yet isolated by scientists, but proven to be of value in nature’s laboratory of day-to-day life.
Other important foods, such as fresh vegetables and fruits (before cooking), are considered bioactive. That is, while they are rich in organic vitamins, minerals, proteins, and living enzymes, and can contribute to improved well-being, they are not capable of creating new life.
At the other extreme are processed, denatured, and cooked foods, on which I feel modern people have become altogether too dependent. In the Living Food Lifestyle, I suggest that these foods be eaten infrequently or avoided altogether.
At the foundation of the living foods concept is the seed. Filled with nutrients needed by the growing plant, and suffused with vital enzymes, seeds are the very core of life. All the energy and life of a plant goes toward making seeds. Each seed holds vitamins, minerals, proteins, fats, and carbohydrates (starches) in reserve, awaiting the suitable environment to begin growing. When air, water, and a suitable temperature are provided, a miracle begins. When the seed germinates (begins to sprout) an incredible flow of energy is released. Natural chemical changes occur. Enzymes are produced to convert the concentrated nutrients into those needed by the growing plant.
For more detailed information on sprouting with great photos, enjoy today’s download.
We look forward to seeing you in The Green Room!
Expert Panel Host: Steve Meyerowitz *Sprouts? Are they garnish, or are they food? Many who don't know much about sprouts put them in the same category as parsley, a garnish that you put on your food but not much of a food in itself.
Theme Music: “My Love and Maybe I’m Amazed” by Paul McCartney From "Back In The U.S." concert, 2002.
Watch John Kohlerinterview Steve Meyerowitz, the Sproutman at Natural Products Expo West.
Sproutman talks about his history, the virtues of kitchen gardening, and how to get started. Learn about the features of Sproutman's Freshlife Automatic Sprouter, and about the many varieties of organic sprouting seeds available.
Sproutman Steve Meyerowitz unboxes and assembles the Freshlife 3000 Automatic Sprouter.
Today’s Downloads
sprouts and sprouting
Sprouts are a Nutrient-Dense, home-grown, happy, year-round tasty addition to our diet, which have a feel-good history starting with Ann Wigmore and her efforts to make live foods available to everyone. Sprouts are great for children to grow, and you don’t need a garden to harvest pounds and pounds of fresh greens! File Contents: THE SPROUTING BOOK: A PREVIEW . . .A HEALTHY PERSPECTIVE OF SPROUTS . . . HOME SPROUTING – FRESH LIFE SPROUTER . . .SPROUTING CHARTS . . .LARGE-SCALE SPROUTING
Online Articles
The Science of Sprout Nutrition
Here you will find a list of documents regarding nutrition in sprouts. These documents have been gathered from around the web. We give credit whenever possible. We can not substantiate everything, but we have been fairly picky about what we put here. We encourage you to go out there and search for more information.
Great Books
By Ann Wigmore
Written for everyone who is interested in good nutrition at a low cost and with great taste, this highly practical and fully illustrated book provides readers with all the information necessary to start and maintain an indoor sprout garden. The book discusses a wide variety of sprouts and sprouting methods, explains the sprouts importance in a healthy diet and presents a wealth of simple and delicious recipes.
By Steve Meyerowitz
The Sproutman’s guide to indoor organic gardening shows you step by step, how to grow these delicious baby greens and mini-vegetables in just one week from seed to salad. This guide can make anyone a self sufficient gardener of sprouts that are bursting with concentrated nutrition. Includes comprehensive nutrition charts, Questions and Answers, seed resources, illustrations, photo’s & Charts.
By Paul Roberts
Salmonella-tainted tomatoes, riots, and skyrocketing prices are only the latest in a series of food-related crises that have illuminated the failures of the modern food system. In The End of Food, Paul Roberts investigates this system and presents a startling truth—how we make, market, and transport our food is no longer compatible with the billions of consumers the system was built to serve.
The emergence of large-scale and efficient food production forever changed our relationship with food and ultimately left a vulnerable and paradoxical system in place. High-volume factory systems create new risks for food-borne illness; high-yield crops generate grain, produce, and meat of declining nutritional quality; and while nearly a billion people are overweight, roughly as many people are starving.
In this vivid narrative, Roberts presents clear, stark visions of the future and helps us prepare to make the necessary decisions to survive the demise of food production as we know it.
Media, Films, & Documentaries
[Audio Interview] Growing on Sprouts with the Sproutman Steve Meyerowitz on Raw Vegan Radio
Bestselling author and the world’s leading proponent of Sprouting, Wheatgrass and Green Living Steve Meyerowitz The Sproutman Reveals:
* the history and culture of wheatgrasss
* how to grow your own wheatgrass with success
* the science behind wheatgrass and its benefits on human health
* sprouting and why you should be eating sprouts everyday
Steve “The Sproutman” Meyerowitz Steve is a health crusader and author of 10 books including Power Juices Super Drinks, Wheatgrass Nature’s Finest Medicine, Juice Fasting and Detoxification, and Food Combining and Digestion. His most recent book is “The Organic Food Guide: How to Shop Smarter and Eat Healthier.”
Paul Roberts: The End of Food
Paul Roberts, veteran print journalist, and author of The End of Food, and The End of Oil, speaks at the first ever, Organicology conference, in Portland, Oregon. The story he tells here is a cautionary tale. Modern science has created the industrial agriculture revolution, producing enormous benefits for society. Though over time, many of these very same benefits: lower costs of production, greater production yields, and greater efficiency through increased economies of scale, have led to serious systemic problems that threaten the entire agricultural system, perhaps even our planet.