GFY-N! Transitions - Week 3

Greetings from Me and My House,

Welcome to Week 3 of transitioning to a healthier - Good for You-Naturally! - Lifestyle of Eating. We began Step 1, Week 1 by starting each lunch and supper with raw vegetables/salads. In Week 2 we continued Step 1 and added Step 2, eating raw fruits in the morning, before or as breakfast. This week, we will continue Steps 1 and 2 and add Step 3.

Step 3 will keep you in the produce department of the store (or perhaps not, read on), but maybe not your regular grocery store. You may need to go to a health food store or contact a nutritional supplier, like me :-) This week we will be adding raw seeds.

Perhaps the only one you can think of is sunflower seeds. And I'm guessing that most of you don't eat them raw. Try them, they are delicious. Pepitos, pumpkin seeds, are also good and popular. Sesame seeds are another popular seed, but not one we usually just munch on by the handful. Flax seeds have become very popular, as their health benefits have been discovered. However, you must grind them before using, because if the outer husk isn't broken they will pass through you undigested. You can just throw them in your blender for a few seconds. Any of these can be thrown on you lunch or supper salads, or sunflower and pumpkin seeds can just eaten plain as snacks.

However, this isn't the primary type of raw seeds we are adding this week. The raw seeds that mainly make up Step 3 are what I call "baby vegetables", sprouted seeds.

Perhaps you are familiar with bean sprouts, those plump sprouts typically added to Chinese dishes, and not usually eaten raw. The other sprouts you may have tried are alfalfa sprouts. These are the long stringy sprouts you see on many salad bars. You can get them in most grocery stores. Beyond that you probably won't find much more variety in regular grocery stores, except perhaps broccoli sprouts, which has also become somewhat popular because of their anti-cancer benefits.

But many types of untreated, organic seeds can be grown and eaten as sprouts. (Never eat tomato or potato sprouts, or garden (treated) seed sprouts.) Other sprouts that are becoming popular commercially are red clover and radish (both usually mixed with alfalfa). Other available sprouting seeds are: cabbage, garlic chives, fenugreek, lentils, and peas, and all of the following. Buckwheat, sunflower, and red pea all grow into nice salad "lettuces". Wheat produces a sweet sprout, and one that can be baked into sprout bread as well as eaten raw, and used in other recipes. Rye and triticale are also sproutable grains. Some grains, such as barley, oats, millet, and quinoa have an outer indigestible husk that is removed before being sold as food, but without which the grain won't sprout. Sproutable barley can be purchased. Rice is not suitable for sprouting. Adzuki, garbanzo, and soy beans do well. Larger beans, such as lima, kidney, black, and navy don't do as well. Chia, flax, cress, and psyllium are all gelatinous seeds that require special treatment. Mixes, containing several types of seeds, are also popular.

You may be able to find several of these sprouts in a health food store. But more than likely you'll need to become a baby vegetable farmer. Don't worry. I call this Gardening for Wimps. No weeds, no bugs, no dirt. No expensive equipment or weather caused failures. Sprouting takes only seconds per day and your crop is ready for harvest in less than a week. You get fresh, nutrient dense, organic produce year round. And you don't even have to go outside.

Do you think you can't afford organic food? Or don't have the time or space to produce an organic garden? Just a tablespoon of so of seed will yield you a bumper crop of a pound of fresh organic vegetables every week in just 9" of counter space, (more if you stack your sprouters,) and literally takes just seconds per day. Sprouting is not just Good for You-Naturally! gardening. It is cheap, easy gardening requiring hardly any time at all.

But oh what you reap. Plants at their peak of nutrition. Enzymes, the life force in raw plants, put there for their growth and our health by God, is at its highest peak in sprout sized plants.

Each variety of sprouts has its own distinction. Some are mild, some sharp; some bitter, some sweet; some hot, just like their grown up counterparts. There will undoubtedly be some you like immediately and others you don't. Alfalfa is mild, unlike in its grown up state, which is probably why it is popular. Radish sprouts taste just like their grown counterpart. So to have cheap, fresh, organic radishes for your salads every day grow your own sprouts rather than buying radishes at the store. Experiment to see which kinds of sprouts you like.

Beginning this week, try to include sprouts daily. Just add them into your salads - or make your salad entirely of sprouts. If you use a variety, you can make a delicious Sprout Salad. Try to find a bigger variety than just Alfalfa (and Broccoli). In fact start growing your own. My ebook, Gardening for Wimps (click on Sprouter), tells you all you probably need to know. If you really want to get into sprout growing and using more than that, Steve Meyerwitz, the Sproutman, wrote the comprehensive volume on sprouting, Sprouts: The Miracle Food (click on Cookbooks).

"O taste a see that the Lord is good." Psalm 34:8
For Me & My House,
At Jesus' feet,
Lisa