3 ms·

You mention it being unflavored, but how does it taste? Did you choose your blend based on flavor, cost, nutrition or a blend of the three? Have you considere

You mention it being unflavored, but how does it taste? Did you choose your blend based on flavor, cost, nutrition or a blend of the three? Have you considered automating the rinsing with a small water pump and Arduino? Or you've considered and the tradeoffs aren't worth it?

RetroTechie 3y ago
> Have you considered automating the rinsing with a small water pump and Arduino? Or you've considered and the tradeoffs aren't worth it? This would rate high on the pointless-tech-o-meter. Right now I happen to have some beans soaking. Overnight they'll absorb up to ~2x their dry weight in water. If I were to pour remaining water out & just rinse 1..3 times/day, they would sprout in a few days. This is the nice thing about buying dry legumes & soaking vs. canned: if I change my mind & eat something else tomorrow, 'worst' case those beans would sprout rather than just soak, changing their nutritional profile somewhat. Possibly for the better. No need to bring in water pumps or (ugh) electronics into any of this.
meristohm 3y ago
Taste: that's a tough one to quantify! If you've ever had red bean paste sweets (either rectangular solids or filled pastries), that's usually adzuki bean, iirc. I'm new to mung beans, and they grow a thick radicle, almost as large as the garbanzo in the same amount of time. Garbanzos are my favorite, in part for the texture. Overall? "Pasty-chalky" is not really selling it, but this is part of how I'd describe cooked unflavored sprouts. I chose these seeds based on what I could buy from the local coop bulk order (supplied by Azure Standard in Dafur, OR) and what I suspected would sprout. The oat groats and barley don't sprout- seems like they've been heat-treated? Recently I added buckwheat and sesame; curious to see if they sprout. I figure a variety of seeds is better for nutrition, but I admit I don't really know. "Eat your colors" is about as complicated as I go unless I'm temporarily into some fad or other. This may go that way, but the price is right, it's easy to do, feels good in my body, and has a lower resource cost than other things I might eat. The main downside is that I'm the only one eating like this in my family, and I also cook most of the meals. To previous concerns about contamination, I don't wash the seeds with anything other than water and friction (to get out rocks and dirt and dust and unwanted plant-parts), because I end up cooking the sprouts until soft. I hope that's enough to kill Escherichia coli. I don't as yet grow sprouts to make them green and leafy, just until the radicle gets 1-3cm long. Sometimes they green up but that's incidental. Considering growing wheat grass, but now we're talking soil or other substrate, clipping, blending or juicing; that's too much work, haha.
mksybr 3y ago
Mung beans sprouts taste nutty and a little bitter, and they only take a daily rinsing, so it's not a lot of work to sprout, I use a mason jar with a cheese clothe rubber banded to the top. I don't like the taste much, but they can have a nice crisp texture.

RetroTechie 3y ago

> Have you considered automating the rinsing with a small water pump and Arduino? Or you've considered and the tradeoffs aren't worth it? This would rate high on the pointless-tech-o-meter. Right now I happen to have some beans soaking. Overnight they'll absorb up to ~2x their dry weight in water. If I were to pour remaining water out & just rinse 1..3 times/day, they would sprout in a few days. This is the nice thing about buying dry legumes & soaking vs. canned: if I change my mind & eat something else tomorrow, 'worst' case those beans would sprout rather than just soak, changing their nutritional profile somewhat. Possibly for the better. No need to bring in water pumps or (ugh) electronics into any of this.

meristohm 3y ago

Taste: that's a tough one to quantify! If you've ever had red bean paste sweets (either rectangular solids or filled pastries), that's usually adzuki bean, iirc. I'm new to mung beans, and they grow a thick radicle, almost as large as the garbanzo in the same amount of time. Garbanzos are my favorite, in part for the texture. Overall? "Pasty-chalky" is not really selling it, but this is part of how I'd describe cooked unflavored sprouts. I chose these seeds based on what I could buy from the local coop bulk order (supplied by Azure Standard in Dafur, OR) and what I suspected would sprout. The oat groats and barley don't sprout- seems like they've been heat-treated? Recently I added buckwheat and sesame; curious to see if they sprout. I figure a variety of seeds is better for nutrition, but I admit I don't really know. "Eat your colors" is about as complicated as I go unless I'm temporarily into some fad or other. This may go that way, but the price is right, it's easy to do, feels good in my body, and has a lower resource cost than other things I might eat. The main downside is that I'm the only one eating like this in my family, and I also cook most of the meals. To previous concerns about contamination, I don't wash the seeds with anything other than water and friction (to get out rocks and dirt and dust and unwanted plant-parts), because I end up cooking the sprouts until soft. I hope that's enough to kill Escherichia coli. I don't as yet grow sprouts to make them green and leafy, just until the radicle gets 1-3cm long. Sometimes they green up but that's incidental. Considering growing wheat grass, but now we're talking soil or other substrate, clipping, blending or juicing; that's too much work, haha.

mksybr 3y ago

Mung beans sprouts taste nutty and a little bitter, and they only take a daily rinsing, so it's not a lot of work to sprout, I use a mason jar with a cheese clothe rubber banded to the top. I don't like the taste much, but they can have a nice crisp texture.