[SisterK]

Johnny, or anyone out there, do you have experience growing your own sprouts? I think it might be handy to know how to grow instant food if you have a whole lot of seeds/beans, not much water, and not much time. Any sprouts input would be appreciated. And why are commercially grown sprouts sometimes re-called? E-coli?
thank you!

[JRandomFreeper]

I've grown my own sprouts. It's pretty easy to do. It's as easy as malting barley. ;)

I don't know why the commercially grown are recalled. Not something I've run across.

I generally sprout in a quart mason jar with a piece of cheesecloth under the ring in place of the lid.

There are good instructions online, much better than I can write here off-the-cuff.

/johnny

[Ellendra]

And why are commercially grown sprouts sometimes re-called?

The growing conditions needed for sprouts are the same as what's needed to grow mold. When I grew sprouts for the farmer's market years ago, I often had to throw out batches because they got contaminated and started growing mold. If you scrub and sterilize your growing containers between batches it'll happen less often, but there's no practical way to prevent it entirely.

[Marcella]

“growing your own sprouts?”

Totally easy to grow. Get a good sprout unit and follow the directions, almost impossible to screw up. Before I started trying to grow food, I had sprouts as my backup fresh food for nutrients. Broccoli sprouts have the most food value and taste just fine. I have long term stored sprouting seed. A few seeds are poison, but if you buy sprouting seed from a grower, you won’t be getting those seeds. Don’t assume just any seed is a sprouting seed to eat.

I grew many different ones, and subjected my husband and me to the result and he didn’t complain, so that was a plus. Sprouts are a great salad full of the nutrients you need. There are many more nutrients in the sprout than in the plant. Nutrients are lost as the plant grows from the seed so you are eating the garbage remains when you eat the plant. :o) :o)

[Marcella]

I wouldn't use a homemade sprouter as it is easier to end up with a mess of mold or whatever. A sprouter is made to be easily cleaned and every “crop” I had was fine. You can have fresh highly concentrated nutrients in three or four days. I recommend The Sprout People website - you can learn all you need to know there and I use the “Sproutmaster” tray unit which costs $19+ now. I had no problem cleaning the trays. I would not use the tall cup type also on this website. You can get any type proper seed for sprouting on this website.

http://sproutpeople.org/sproutmaster-8x10-tray-sprouter/