COOKING WITH SPROUTS

Image Gallery RICH OSENTOSKI/ENVISION

NATURAL HEALTH

MOTHER'S KITCHEN

The "King of Health Foods" is alive...and making a comeback.

By Anne Vassal

Add a handful of sprouts to your favorite vegetable dishes;
they're a lot more healthful than using highfat nuts—and
tasty, too!

Sprouts? Disgusting! You're turning the page at record-breaking speed and who can blame you? An image of tasteless vegetation emerging from your sandwich springs to mind. Your favorite fast-food restaurant has probably attempted to give your sandwich a "healthy" appearance, forcing you to yell "Hold the sprouts!" before they throw it on your tray. After all, only health-food fanatics can faithfully consume this food with any enthusiasm, right?

Maybe not. In the health-conscious and low-fat nineties, sprouts are making a subtle comeback—and with good reason. They're rich in essential vitamins and minerals, low in calories and fat, and high in dietary fiber. They are also inexpensive, especially if you decide to grow your own. Sprouts are a "live" food, and easy to grow indoors during the winter months. Flavorful new varieties, such as radish and onion sprouts, are now available (fresh or in seed form) at your local grocery or health-food store, causing the old alfalfa sprout to take a backseat.

So how did the sprout obtain its "King of Health Foods" status? Every seed contains the embryo of a future plant and the nutrients needed to nourish its growth. When the seed (or bean) germinates, it releases these nutrients into the resulting sprout. In the course of its sprouting, the seed uses up some of its stored carbohydrates and fat, adds water, and manufactures some vitamins and minerals. You wind up with a reduced-calorie food that is still rich in protein, containing more nutrients than the original seed. For example, the vitamin C in both soybeans and gar-banzo beans increases from a mere trace during sprouting, until the soybean sprouts are as rich in vitamin C as tomatoes. Wheat berries have three times more vitamin E and six times more of some B vitamins after they've sprouted. They also contain Super Oxide Dimutase, Dimutases are a class of proteins having the common feature of being antioxidants, which removepoisons from the body and aid the remission of aging symptoms.

Sprout Varieties