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My experiments with sprouting legumes
- debarshri 5y agoThis reminds me of my childhood when my mother would sprout green among dal, try to force feed me while trying to tell me the health benefits. Now I live in Europe and overpay for sprouts in vegan restaurants. I guess my mother was ahead of curve.
- upgrademyfood 5y agoHaha!! She truly was ahead of the curve. Same - with my dad and moringa leaves.
- pvaldes 5y agoOne minute of silence for all the Moringa saplings that I have killed in its pots. Easy came, easy go, like true rebels do.
- novaRom 5y agoWhere do you live? In Germany you can buy fresh sprouts very cheap in any Supermarket even in Aldi. It's about 1 Euro per 250 gramm, and even cheaper in any asian grocery store.
- hobs 5y agoYou can also buy a bag and a tiny plastic sprouter and rotate your own - water, seeds, and a few trays live on my counter and I can have fresh sprouts every day (take about 5 days to grow and I have four containers so one day off.)
- maxk42 5y agoIf you'd like to eliminate gas formation caused by legumes, you need only change the water (preferably twice) during the cooking process. Undigestible sugars (AKA soluble fiber) are the primary culprit for this property of most legumes. Conveniently, they dissolve when heated in water. However, legumes begin very hard and it takes a lot of boiling to release all of those gas-forming sugars. If you have a legume that takes two hours to soften by boiling, try changing the water once after an hour, and again after they're fully boiled. (And rinse thoroughly.) Then you can use them in any dish and generally suffer little to no gas after consuming. Enjoy!
- valarauko 5y agoI assume you're referring to raffinose? In Indian cooking (which uses a lot of legumes) our solution is to soak them overnight and discard the water - cuts down the raffinose and overall cooking time. We also almost universally cook them in pressure cookers - even the toughest beans cook rapidly in a pressure cooker if soaked - maybe 15 minutes?
- Zababa 5y agoAlso, don't eat legumes that have just been soaked or that are still cooking, you'll get a huge stomachache. I learned this the hard way while tasting kidney beans while they were cooking.
- foobiekr 5y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_bean#Toxicity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kidney_bean#Toxicity It can be worse than a stomach ache.
- morsch 5y ago"As few as five raw beans or a single undercooked kidney bean can cause severe nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, and abdominal pains." That's nuts, though I don't understand why undercooked beans would be worse than raw beans, and not the other way round. Maybe the two claims are from different sources.
- whatshisface 5y agoYour digestive system may not get at the raw bean as quickly or at all.
- molasses 5y agoOh man I got poisoned by some bought canned kidney beans used in a salad, and it wasn't pretty.
- 5y ago
- bserge 5y agoI took it beyond sprouting and grew full fledged plants out of fresh tomato seeds, fresh bellpepper seeds, dried beans, onions, garlic, dried chickpeas and dried green peas. They all grew and produced their own vegetables. Rice and avocado failed, but I didn't pay any special attention to their needs. Tomatoes, onions and garlic grow under cheap LEDs, too. The latter two probably grow in the dark tbh, very resilient. Plants are amazing.
- abhinuvpitale 5y agoPlants are amazing!
- tmountain 5y agoI had a giant summer squash vine growing out of my compost pile, and I let it go. Within about a month, it was not only producing summer squash but also producing pumpkin-like gourds (some yellow and green, and some white), a few of which grew to gigantic sizes. A gardening friend told me that this is because of hybridization and that the plant can exhibit characteristics of multiple parent plants. It's possible that the parent plant had been crossed with a pumpkin/gourd type plant to take advantage of some of its innate characteristics (disease resistance, etc).
- benjohnson 5y agoIf the weird offspring are really bitter, stop eating them! You probably won’t die but you’ll be quite miserable. Apparently, once a gourd starts not breeding true, it can revert to a form with way too much bitterness - we humans have trouble with the chemical and get quite sick. https://www.anses.fr/en/content/beware-inedible-gourds https://www.anses.fr/en/content/beware-inedible-gourds
- tmountain 5y agoYeah, I didn't eat any of the weird offspring. We did eat the summer squash it produced, and they were delicious.
- 5y ago
- ArkanExplorer 5y agoThis is just a huge amount of labour, and it proves that home cooking is fundamentally inefficient (unless you have a large extended family). We should be able to eat healthy sprouted foods like this centrally, at communal kitchens. There is too much waste, inefficiency, and cost associated with current restaurants for them to fulfill that purpose. An admiral thing about Indian society is the food, and extended family support. Its not surprising that this author is of Indian heritage.
- JoeAltmaier 5y agoConfused. Filling a jar with beans and water, and dumping/refilling every so often is "a huge amount of labour"? Compared to what? Sitting and watching TV? This is a tiny, tiny effort compared to almost anything - running, riding a bike, vacuuming the carpet. Heck its about the same as ordering takeout delivered and going to the door to get it.
- outworlder 5y ago> There is too much waste, inefficiency, and cost associated with current restaurants for them to fulfill that purpose. Why would 'communal kitchens' be more efficient?
- bigbillheck 5y ago> This is just a huge amount of labour, and it proves that home cooking is fundamentally inefficient It doesn't seem all that more laborious than, say, keeping a sourdough starter? (Or at one of the other ends of the food prep process, a compost bucket).
- beebeepka 5y agoWaste? I eat pretty much everything my wife cooks and she's getting better by the year. Home cooking is amazing. I didn't even say a thing about plastic utensils...
- upgrademyfood 5y agoThere are markets in Maharasthra where sprouts are sold on an everyday basis. Some Chinese stores have it too. Regarding making these at home: Granted there is a lot of wait time with these processes, but a lot of it is inactive - soak, rinse, wait, repeat. But, it is a fair point that you should have these healthy foods available to you easily without having to worry about preparing it yourself.
- user568439 5y agoWhat I do with lentils is just leave them with water during one night, not too much water so they "drink" it all. Once they sprout I cook them in a pan with a little of extra virgin olive oil. Finally I add salt and the result is a very crunchy and healthy snack that everybody likes. Sprouts with Mediterranean touch
- zwieback 5y agoAny lentils from the supermarket or do they have to be somehow untreated to sprout?
- uxamanda 5y agoMake sure they still have their hull, but other than that normal grocery store lentils will sprout.
- craigbaker 5y agoAll the lentils from the supermarket that I've tried (and all legumes for that matter) have successfully sprouted: brown, pardina, black (beluga), and red. They're also good raw when sprouted, but not pardina, which I found ended up with occasional super-hard ones that hurt my teeth.
- brudgers 5y agoI have been sprouting lentils for two years. I just by GV brand from Walmart for less than a dollar per pound bag. Started when I was clearing the pantry before moving to the west coast. The sprouting lids I think might date to the 1970’s and fit a mason jar. I soak them about 24 hours, only because I will start them when I see I am low at breakfast and drain them the next day. I let them sprout on the counter. Three or four days later they are done.
- upgrademyfood 5y agoGreat idea!!
- outworlder 5y agoThere's a whole "microgreens" community now. It seems to not require very much labor and you can harvest every week, give or take a few days. Doesn't seem to consume a lot of space either.
- uxamanda 5y agoYep, I have been doing this for a while. By spending a few mins a day I have a regular harvest (every 1-3 days) of a variety of microgreens / sprouts. Once you have a plan of when to start things and some basic equipment, you can go on autopilot!
- enchiridion 5y agoAny good resources for this?
- hobs 5y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MlMLm1MmRU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MlMLm1MmRU I like Jeb The Gardender - the truth is microgreens are pretty easy. A cheaper version of this - https://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Kitchen-Sprouter-VICTORIO-VKP1200/dp/B01AJJOJD0/ https://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Kitchen-Sprouter-VICTORIO-VKP1... works wonders - doesn't even need light, and as long as you are in generally balmy weather you just add tap water 2-3 times a day and you're good (the seeds contain all the energy.) Jeb has some fun setups but you can buy a cheap hydro kit or make your own out of plastic tubs/buckets - for small stuff cheap cheap LED lighting will do - I have seen people use the stuff for tracklights for the smaller stuff - otherwise grow lights are pretty straightforward to acquire. If you live in the states you can go to your local grow shop and pick up a lot of this cheap because of the popularity of growing your own cannabis, but its good for the rest of us indoor gardeners because of the availability :)
- uxamanda 5y agoI started with a "Kitchen Crop " 4-tier sprouter with a mix of broccoli and alfalfa. I start one tray every other day and harvest the off day, so it is continuous. Change the water in the morning and at night. It's low maintenance, just make sure seeds aren't getting caught in the drainage holes. I have since branched out to multiple types of microgreens, but those get a little more complicated and require lighting of some sort. Once you have a plan though, you get to be a human-in-the-loop robot to keep the machine going. :-)
- dvh 5y agoI eat sprouted mung raw and I haven't died yet, should I cook them? As for soaking before cooking, I used to soak lentils (brown) and mung but it's not needed if they are cooked (35min with lid on). Only larger legumes needs to be soaked or cooked much longer than 35min.
- _joel 5y agoWell it worked for Creed in the US Office, but it makes you smell like old people. Very scientific, I know.
- upgrademyfood 5y agoYou can absolutely eat them raw, no problem. Some people like me, don't like the taste of raw sprouts, that's all.
- somberi 5y agoIt is common in parts of India to make Mung Bean Pancakes (1). Soak the Mung Beans in more than three times the volume, for 4 hours. Throw the water away, grind the mung beans to a puree, and let it ferment overnight, and prepare it on a girdle as you would cook Pancakes. My value add in this is that, between the soak and grind phases, I put the beans in the fridge for 24 hours tied in a wet cloth, and let it sprout before grinding it. Soak > Sprout > Grind > Ferment > Pancake. The sprouting increases the amount of nutrients marginally (2)(3). One of the common and widely used ingredient to counter the gas-producing nature of legume dishes, is Asafoetida (aka Hing). (4) (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesarattu https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pesarattu (2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573095/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4573095/ (3) https://www.echocommunity.org/en/resources/bcee9e2a-f494-4b5f-ac91-449a354f6078 https://www.echocommunity.org/en/resources/bcee9e2a-f494-4b5... (4) https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54617077 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-54617077
- chiyc 5y agoVery cool! Koreans also do something similar with mung beans: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindae-tteok https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bindae-tteok I'm going to have to give pesarattu a try. I love how crispy it looks, and some of the recipes I've found with added ginger, chilies, and hing sound like a delight.
- AceJohnny2 5y agoI'm reminded of Neal Stephenson's book "The Diamond Age", where one of the plotlines is about undermining the centralized (molecular) 3D-printing industry to a decentralized seed-based 3D printing technology. When you think about it, seeds are fascinating in their ability to bootstrap an organism.
- molasses 5y agoI went through a raw food phase, and there was something distinctly satisfying about bean sprouts. And crunchy salads. Cooked food seemed so dull by comparison. The jar method is good, I had one with some plastic mesh that I'd leave on the drainer and swill through a few times a day. The post has inspired me to resurrect it.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoOne thing to note is that sprouts can harbor fairly nasty bacteria[1] though pressure cooking should help with that, some of those toxins are tougher than others. 1: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-sprouts-are-especially-good-at-harboring-dangerous-bacteria_n_58347756e4b09b6055fedde3 https://www.huffpost.com/entry/why-sprouts-are-especially-go...
- pmoriarty 5y agoFrom This Week in Virology episode 595: "...having covered a number of food safety conferences and stories, if you talk to people who study and work in food safety professionally, every single one of them I've talked to, if you ask them "Is there a food that you just won't eat, for food safety reasons?" the answer is raw sprouts. "Just don't eat raw sprouts. You can cook them, but don't eat them raw. They are impossible to sanitize and their production process is just a culture dish. Forget it." [1] - About 47 minutes in to http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-595/ http://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-595/
- UncleOxidant 5y agoI've heard that you can alleviate this by adding a bit of vinegar to the soaking and rinsing water - it lowers the pH thus inhibiting the growth of most of the bad bacteria. For the article being discussed it seems like he's intending to cook all of the sprouts he's making so it should be quite safe without using any vinegar.
- hobs 5y agoI find very little added to the water when growing the microgreens means no smell at the end.
- BugsJustFindMe 5y agoOr wash them with soap? Sometimes my own home grown sprouts from a certain batch of seeds will all smell manky, but then I wash them with dish soap and then they don't anymore. What does "impossible to sanitize" mean? If I can eat with my hands after washing them with soap, why would sprouts be different?
- ncmncm 5y agoFunny, I sprouted my first seeds in decades, and they are Acacia acuminata, one of a very large taxon of pea-related plants. A. acum. is known (mainly in Australia) as Jam Wattle, because it smells like raspberry jam when sawn. There are supposed to be 2 million century-old jam wattle fenceposts in southwest Australia. Apparently they are proof against termites and rot. It seems to prefer 26 to 32 degrees south latitude, and sandy soil. Sandalwood likes to grow nearby to parasitize something it can't extract by itself, but can get from A. a.'s root system. And, A. a. leaves (actually not leaves at all, but "phyllodes") have lots of interesting alkaloids. The bark has lots of tannins, and the seeds have lots of protein. To sprout them you have to scrape ("scarify") the seeds with sandpaper and then put them in a bowl and pour boiling water over them first. Then, the seed has to be exposed to sunlight while wrapped in damp soil for a couple of weeks.
- nanomonkey 5y agoAn alternative to sprouting beans is to soak them until they start to ferment. Adding a tablespoon of sour dough starter, or some "back slop" from the previous ferment will kick start the process. The fermentation process breaks down the indigestible fibers that cause gas, plus give an extra umami boost. One note, lactic fermentation produces lactic acid which will drop the pH of the beans which can cause them cook a bit stiff. After rinsing the beans you can soak them in baking soda water, or put a small amount (teaspoon?) or so of baking soda or calcium carbonate into the cook water to raise the pH and make the beans softer. Another alternative is to use koji rice for an even greater umami boost.
- lucioperca 5y agoI do not want to spoil your sprouting fun, but please remember this: https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/ehec_outbreak_2011-186689.html https://www.bfr.bund.de/en/ehec_outbreak_2011-186689.html
- 12ian34 5y agoAm I missing something or was this not just an isolated batch of Fenugreek seeds from 2011?
- Synaesthesia 5y agoSprouting creates a huge amount of vitamins.