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Quick guide to sprouting!

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SproutingSuccessSprouting is a lot easier than it seems, and you’ll be amazed at how a tiny bit of seed can make piles and piles of sprouts for your sandwiches, salads, casseroles, etc. They’re also great by the handful as quick snacks!

Be sure to involve the kids – you’ll be amazed at how they’ll want to eat the sprouts they grow!

What Equipment Do I Need to Make Sprouts?

A container
Options are almost all affordable (<$20), and range from simple containers with built-in sieves to multi-tiered versions for sprouting several varieties at once. You can also use a simple glass jar with mesh/cheesecloth secured by a rubber band over the opening or screening fastened by a metal, screw-top ring, like this one from Amazon.

Water
Use fresh, clean water (non-chlorinated is best).

Untreated seeds
A few tablespoons of small sprouting seeds (like alfalfa or clover) to half a cup of seed (for large seeds like lentils or beans) are all you need to produce sprouts for sandwiches, salads, and other dishes. Sprouts will double or triple in size, depending on the size of the seed and the variety you are sprouting. Start small, to help ensure you don’t end up with sprouts going bad in your refrigerator. Seeds and mixes are available online from sprout and seed companies, from Amazon, or at your local health food store. You may want to try mixes that include more than one seed type, which can add a nice variety to your sandwiches and salads.

To sprout

  • Rinse seeds under water to clean them and remove any dust or dirt.
  • Spread them evenly in your container to form a thin layer. Do not let them pile on top of one another.
  • Cover your seeds completely and soak for 6-12 hours. (Be sure to poke down any floaters.) This helps encourage sprouting.
  • Drain water from the seeds and keep moist. If using a jar, try laying on one side for more even distribution.
  • Rinse and drain 2-3 times per day. Rinse sunflower seeds more frequently, since they will get slimy. Rinse or pick off seed skins to prevent rotting.
  • After your seeds have sprouted, rinse and drain regularly (every 8-12 hours) until sprouts reach the desired length.
  • Eat fresh or store in the fridge until consumed. Most sprouts last 1-2 weeks when kept cool.

    • Average Number of Days to Finish Sprouts
    Lentil Sprouts: 3-4 days
    Mung bean Sprouts: 3-5 days
    Radish Sprouts: 4-5 days
    Mustard Sprouts: 3-6 days
    Alfalfa and Clover Sprouts: 5-6 days

    Six Ways to Hook Kids on Real Food

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    6 Ways to hook kids on real food

    With the world (meaning, food marketers) trying their best to hook your kids on their junky packaged foods, you’ve got to fight back hard! And we know – you’re already busy just trying to get your kids to school/practice/lessons/play dates/etc. … you don’t have time to give them food lectures (and lectures don’t work, anyway)!

    Here are 6 fun, simple ways to help break the hold the food companies have on your kids, and instead hook them on healthy, amazing, REAL food:

    1. Grow Food: Even if you only have room for a small pot of herbs in a city apartment, involving a child in growing has been shown to pay lifetime dividends in vegetable consumption. A child who helped grow the parsley will HAPPILY urge the whole family to taste their very own parsley salad.

    2. Introduce kids to “ingredients” in their native form: If you’re making soup, keep little bits of the raw ingredients aside for a “tasting session,” then have them try to identify the celery, the onion, the carrot, etc. in the soup. Discuss how cooking changes the texture and flavor of the ingredients.

    3. Keep herbs/spices and interesting condiments on the table, and encourage experimentation: I learned this when I left cinnamon on the table, and my son added it to an almond butter sandwich. It turned out to be a great flavor combo, and he gobbled down the sandwich that “he” had made. Hot sauces, flavored oils, fun spices like ginger and vanilla, and other tasty add-ins will help build interest and creativity around the whole foods you’re serving, and help kids personalize their food.

    4. Build a family cookbook: Encourage kids to take pictures of their favorite meals/dishes (get family members in the pics, too!), name the dishes together, and keep them in a photo album. Keep it in the kitchen as a frequent reminder of the great real food family times you’ve had, so your kids learn to associate real food with great moments.

    5. Celebrate with Real Food! Don’t fall prey to the seductive marketing message to use celebrations as an excuse to eat junk. That sends exactly the wrong message: that these foods are “rewards,” and these false “rewards” become anchored in the pleasure centers of your child’s brain. Instead, celebrate by making extra-beautiful, extra-fresh meals together during the holidays and other special days.

    6. COOK TOGETHER: Nothing else will make your child more immune to the marketer’s siren song about “convenience” than this. When your child knows that an egg can be cooked, a salad can be tossed, a veggie can be braised, or a smoothie can be blended in literally minutes, you give them the tools and the tastebuds they need to resist the call of the microwaved Frankenfood that marketers want them to buy.

    Most of all, make real food a centerpiece of loving family moments, and kids will grow up associating real food with great family feelings.

    Six Ways to Hook Kids on Real Food, by Jennifer Silverberg, Eat Yourself Well

    The Power of the Plate

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    The Power the PlateResearchers spend hundreds of millions of dollars on medications and other medical interventions for diseases that your body is already fighting every single day. To quote from one of my favorite Ted Talks, William Li, “Can we eat to starve cancer?“:”Autopsy studies from people who died in car accidents have shown that about 40 percent of women between the ages of 40 and 50 actually have microscopic cancers in their breasts, about 50 percent of men in their 50s and 60s have microscopic prostate cancers, and virtually 100 percent of us, by the time we reach our 70s, will have microscopic cancers growing in our thyroid. Yet, without a blood supply, most of these cancers will never become dangerous. Dr. Judah Folkman, who was my mentor and who was the pioneer of the angiogenesis field, once called this ‘cancer without disease.'”

    For the most part, our bodies can handle foreign invaders and internal threats, as long as:

    1. They are identifiable as an invader – meaning they aren’t some new bacteria/virus/compound that the body can’t identify, or to which it hasn’t developed a response. This is why new chemicals, GMOs, and such have the potential to be so problematic.

    2. The body isn’t already so compromised from dealing with known invaders, injuries, etc. that it is too taxed to fight back. This is why it is important to maintain a healthy lifestyle, including clean foods, regular exercise, stress management, etc.

    Right this very minute, probably the best thing you can do to support – and thank! – the amazing systems that keep your body healthy is to go find the darkest, greenest, leafiest organic vegetable around, and eat it. Then in an hour, do it again – and throw in some cooked tomatoes – and blueberries for dessert. The beautiful thing is that you have 3-4 opportunities to do this every day, and every one can be health-supporting, beautiful, and absolutely delicious!

    Mediterranean Feast in <5 Minutes!

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    Weeknight Mediterranean Platter

    With just a little planning and some common prepared foods on hand, weeknight dinners can look like this Mediterranean Feast – in under 5 minutes! Be sure to plate them in a way that pleases your eye as well as your palate (yes, it matters) … those fast-food places on your way home won’t stand a chance.

    Plus, this kind of eating – little bits of several high-nutrient and high-quality foods – is a great way to give your body a variety of nutrients to support your health!

    What I used:
    Organic Hummus
    2 organic peppers – red, and purple
    2 pickled hot peppers (I made these over the weekend in a simple vinegar brine)
    A couple of bits of cheese – I had a goat brie and a bit of Iberico
    Bagged greens – I love the Cruciferous Crunch Collection that Trader Joe’s sells, but you can use kale, chard, or lettuces if you prefer
    A bit of wine vinegar and olive oil to sprinkle over the greens
    sliced mini-cucumber
    sliced tomato
    A few wheat crostini
    Salt and fresh ground pepper
    100% grape juice

    What I might have also used, if it were handy and sounded good:
    Any other in-season veggies – avocado, chickpeas, carrots, celery, etc.
    Herbs to mix into the greens
    Raw, organic almonds, cashews, etc.
    Leftover grains of any kind – quinoa, freekeh, etc.
    Wine

    Stress-Less Salad

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    Stress-Less Salad, Eat Yourself Well

    When you’re feeling stressed, you’ll want to give your body extra whole, natural, beautiful food love … with a special focus on the B Vitamins, Vitamin C, and potassium, and other nutrients that have a calming effect.

    For this salad, add the following ingredients in whatever quantities seem right to you – and based on what you have on hand. For best presentation and the joy of eating, make sure that all pieces are smaller than bite-sized in the salad, so you can get a few various veggies in each bite. And experiment with what you have on hand – sweet peppers and avocados make a great additions.

    For the oil and orange juice, use about 1-2 Tbsp of each per serving – less is more, and lets the flavors of the vegetables shine through!

    Spinach: Vit.C, B Vits, and glycoglycerolipids (anti-inflammatory)
    Broccoli: Vit. C, B Vits, Vit. K, and Potassium
    Almonds: B Vitamins, Potassium
    Black Beans: B Vitamins, fiber, complex carbs and protein
    Celery: Potassium, B’s, C, and phthalides – see note below
    Strawberries: Vit C., anthocyanins
    Red Onions: Vit. C (plus phytochemicals that boost the working of Vitamin C in the body), Flavanoids, Polyphenol, Quercetin (all address oxidative stress in the body)
    Orange Juice: Vit. C
    Olive Oil: monounsaturated fats

    Why B’s?

    B vitamins protect the nervous system and sooth the body and mind, combating anxiety, irritability, tension and insomnia. They help your body fight chronic stress, as well as supporting your body’s response to immediate, “fight or flight” extreme stress. There are eight vitamins composing the whole vitamin B complex: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B7, B9, and B12. They are best taken together in whole foods.

    Why C?

    Vitamin C strengthens our immune system, which our body’s hormones attack when under stress. Researchers at the University of Alabama fed rats 200 milligrams of vitamin C twice a day and found that it nearly stopped the secretion of stress hormones. Vitamin C can be found in many fruits and vegetables, particularly in citrus fruits, strawberries, kiwis, guavas, oranges, tomatoes and red pepper.

    Why potassium?

    Potassium helps our nervous system deal with chronic stress, and is necessary for proper muscles and heart function. Insomnia, nervousness and depression can be symptoms of potassium deficiency.

    Why fats?

    Oils support healthy brain function (your brain is 80% fat by dry weight!), and reduce oxidative stress throughout the body, reducing inflammation and irritation. Olive oil is a great source of monounsaturated fats, which have been shown to actually slow brain aging.

    Special Celery note:

    Celery has a high level of potassium, and the vitamins C, B 1 and E, which are all important nutrients in fighting stress. Celery contains phytochemicals called phthalides, which some studies have shown reduce stress hormones and work to relax the muscle walls in arteries, increasing blood flow. As a result, it has long been used in Chinese medicine to help control high blood pressure.

    Posted by Jennifer Silverberg, Eat Yourself Well

    Regrow Food from Scraps

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    16 Foods you can Regrow from Scraps

    Various plants, below, that you can use to regrow food from what you already have! Great way to recycle and SAVE, right?

    Use the links below for more info on each vegetable and fruit.

    Apples

    Avocado

    Bok Choy

    Cabbage: Same as celery

    Carrot tops (this is a plant, the carrot itself will not re-grow)

    Celery

    Garlic

    Ginger

    Green Onions

    Leeks: same as green onions

    Lemongrass

    Lentil Sprouts

    Pineapple

    Potatoes/Sweet Potatoes

    Pumpkin

    Romaine Lettuce: Same as celery

    Tomatoes

    Gardening – One great reason why … and three ways to keep it super-simple!

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    Why garden?

    That’s one great reason to try gardening … and then there’s money savings, taste, nutrition, and I could go on and on! However, I struggle with it for years until I realized the three things that made it workable for me (a crazy busy mom with a career or two going on).

    1. Forego digging … forever. The best thing I ever did was buy my handheld tiller (I use this super-simple Mantis), which gets me to the fun part, faster. When I used to have to face down hours with the shovel, and the resulting clods of dirt/clay (I live in GA), I tended to put off planting until it was too late. Oh, and your back will thank you, too.

    2. Select a manageable number of plants, and stick to those few. When I bought “a little of everything,” and just stuck it in the ground and hoped for the best, about half of it failed. Now, we stick to the 5 (for me, that’s the magic number) foods that my family loves the most in the summer, and then plant greens around them for the fall. You can always trade with friends who are growing other things, and supplement at the farmer’s market.

    3. Use soaker hoses. Buy enough non-toxic hoses (here’s why) – once – to lay them down your rows of plants, and leave them there the whole growing season. Dragging a hose all around your garden is a daily … drag. Setting them up once is an hour or so project. After that, all you have to do is turn on the hose for a bit, and then remember to turn it off (set a timer if you’re anything like me).

    That’s what helped me – hope it helps you get gardening this season!

    From Jennifer Silverberg at www.EatYourselfWell.com and facebook.com/eatyourselfwell Please maintain link as you copy and share recipe with others!

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