Part Two - Healthier Healthy Foods

So Chef Roy, how do you justify smoking cigars with a healthy life?  Easy, nothing relaxes you and takes away stress the way a natural handmade aged cigar does.  George Burns, 3 a day, lived to see a hundred.  There's nothin' wrong with cigars, tobacco, in its natural form is not inherently dangerous; tobacco in the hands of big business, becomes a thing to avoid as it really is some nasty stuff.  Why am I bringing this all up?  I have a a very dear friend at the cigar store that I am certain has never tasted a sprout before.  He won't eat lettuce on his meat sandwiches nor salad, nor anything green.  That is kind of sad I think, there is a powerhouse of nutrients in sprouts.  Sprouts are indeed, the miracle of nature and are in all probability the reason humans were able to leave the jungle trees and go out into the savanna and become hunter gatherers.  Yes, it's true, sprouts are the reason humans were able to forage for discarded scraps of meat and that eventually led to humans becoming hunters.  

What?

That might not be such a stretch if we look at the chemistry.  Seeds and grains are powerhouses of stored minerals and amino acids.  And a few vitamins as well.  Eaten as is, they are not so good for us, there is that phytic acid and lectin thing again.  Plus they all pretty much are missing one of the key eight amino acids that are required by humans for complete protein nutrition.  Lysine.  It does seem to be missing from much of the plant world.  And humans can't exactly function without it. and the other seven essential amino acids.  However, in a huge stroke of mother nature's miracles, seeds and grains all change dramatically when they sprout.  They change the stored starches into readily available sugars, they develop a vast array of vitamins, they form phytase, the enzyme that breaks down the phytates, and most of the lectins breakdown as well.  And the big one, they form lysine.  Thus the missing ingredient, that single amino acid that was needed for humans to fully capture ALL of the nutrition possible within a seed or grain's nutritive makeup becomes available and useable.  So did early humans get quart jars and wash seeds a couple times a day until they sprouted.  Sheesh, no, early humans did have a bit bigger brain and they looked around and saw the little seeds sprouting, and ate them.  Most sprouts are a bit sweet, and maybe that's the evolutionary advancement that allowed humans to evolve.  They ate plants that were powerhouses of nutrition and energy.     

So, sprouting.  There are little grated lids you can buy at hippy stores that allow you to make your own sprouts.  The clean way.  It does seem that here in Arizona you can't go to the store and buy sprouts anymore.  Not particularly surprising, when big businesses get involved in anything they allow contamination and bacterial growth through high production methods and just plain not caring.  Anyway, sprouts can be made at home and they are pretty spectacular.  I go to the farmers markets to sell my stuff and lately there are a couple of guys that have been coming to the markets with a new product, micro-greens.  Basically they are sprouts, but grown in a thin layer of soil.  A cool way to get around the legal ban on selling sprouts.  I thought it was a cool idea, and so with a ten inch pot and some soil and a handful of sunflower seeds, I have a whole bunch of sunflower sprouts (or micro-greens) available all the time.  At those same hippy stores where you can buy the jar sprouting gear, you can also buy a whole host of seed options to sprout.  Broccoli, radish, alfalfa, peas, and anything else you can think of.  A great way to add nutrition to your life with very little effort.

Sprouts, big time.  I'm sure most people have enjoyed the most popular version of sprouting available to everyone of us.  Alcohol.  Remember from above that when grains and seeds sprout, they convert the stores of starches into sugars.  When you sprout barley, you get malt sugar.  Barley malt.  And it is the principal ingredient in another of nature's wonders, beer.  A good cigar and a fine crafted beer, sigh, nature at its finest.  Anyway, one of the other things you can do with grains that have sprouted other than make alcohol, is to make bread.  Ezekial bread is the biblical recipe for making bread from sprouted grains.  The actual story behind it is not important, just know that in fact it is one way to make a food product from grains that makes the bread, healthier.  It's pretty simple.  Grains are soaked in water, drained and washed daily until the little sprouts emerge.  Then they are stuck in a powerful blender and ground into a paste which is then mixed with yeast and plopped into pans, allowed to rise and baked into yummy goodness that is inherently healthier because one of the basic techniques of making healthy food healthier is used to make a common food product.  Bread.  Hey, I tried it once, it did not work out.  I probably just need to work on the sprouting timeframes.  All the grains don't sprout at the same time and it was a one time effort, and was nasty.  But, as another of my friends tells me, most stores sell Ezekial bread, and they do a great job of it.  And without any of the toxic additives that make regular bread so nasty.  I on the other hand like to use some of the other techniques to make my bread and I will go into those tomorrow.  But for now, I think this is an introduction into the second tip for eating healthier foods.  Sprouting.  It doesn't hurt, it tastes good, and they are easy to make.  Weird how the store Sprouts, is unable to sell their namesake, sprouts.  But that doesn't mean that you can't make your own, and enjoy the benefits of our ancestral heritage of eating foods that are healthier.