Sprouting!

[SunshineMN]

Since Australia was the worlds largest grower of chia seeds in 2008, can't you just grow some of your own?

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Since Australia was the worlds largest grower of chia seeds in 2008, can't you just grow some of your own?

Australia is not the right cliamte for growing chia so they must always use chemicals on the crop to make it grow, so if l grew it myself l would unlikely be sucessful. Besides, there is no point growing it myself when all my seeds are non organic. Anyway...l still might be able to get organic Bolivian chia through another source, l will find out for sure in a few months time.

My biggest worry is sesame seeds. No-one has any idea of how much time over the years l have spent searching country wide for raw organic unhulled sesame, l have spoken to dozens of people all over the country over the last few years and have hit dead ends each time. lt is impossible to get it anywhere!!! l have even been given secret inside sesame sources on the sly and even those have failed to bring results. l have always been good at locating things, but with sesame l haven't made any in-roads at all over the years. Apparently now, no sesame is grown in Australia. Even two years ago they were still growing it in secret in Australia and cooking it to remove the afro-toxins that are present in the hull, but now it is all overseas and the suppliers to the Australian market only focus on bringing in sesame seeds for cooking. No-one cares. My old source of sesame has now dried up because it was so hard to get raw un-irradiated sesame in to Australia...needed permits for certain things, had to get it shipped from Bolivia to U.S.A to a special seed testing laboritory and then had to go through customs and other read tape at very costly expenses with a miminum 2 tonne nut/seed order and other barriers, so it wasn't worth it...it was so time consuming (that is straight from the actual importer and organic food company owner himself).

The only way is to try and talk a farming company into getting their farmers to grow the sesame again like they used to. l have read up on growing sesame, but it will be impossible. l need warm weather and a silt loam to grow the seed on and various other special growing conditions. Far too hard!!!!!! Still...if my current sproutable sesame hasn't gone bad by summer l will give it a go and make a silt loam with a ratio of 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay and try to keep the soil dry with good drainage. l won't know what l am doing, but l will try lots of various ways and try to make it work. From what l can gather, l am the only person in Australia with sproutable sesame seeds (l got mine through a special way that no other companies do), so l need to try and grow them or send them to farmers so they can use them to start some sesame bushes before it is too late. Makes me wish l didn't have to live in this country...sprouting in the U.S is sooo much better than here.

Sesame sprouts are central to my diet, it is my comfort food and my main meal. lt's my meaty meal, now all l will have most of the year is flax seeds (blah).

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

Rant about the sad state of the Australian seed market

The quality of Australian seeds is so bad. Wheat is bad, barley is bad, Oats are bad, rice is bad, adzuki is bad, green peas are bad and a bunch of others, but it never used to be that way once. lf you dare buy from any company that mentions the word `sprouting', the prices are so high as to become unaffordable. For eg, l can get high quality alfalfa for $30 a kilo, but if l go to a sprouting company they want to charge me $60 a kilo. l can get lentils for $8 a kilo, but if l go through a sprouting company l get the exact same ones for $27 a kilo: http://sprout.net.au/sprouting/sprou...ing-seeds.html l refuse to overpay for seeds to line greedy people's pockets, NO WAY!!! l have sent that company emails and have phoned them various times letting them know l want a large bulk order and buy equipment, but never have they ever contacted me back. lt doesn't give me faith in their business. Haven't even been able to get alfalfa for 12 months, all l have is old seed left.

[MysticTree]

Rant about the sad state of the Australian seed market

The quality of Australian seeds is so bad. Wheat is bad, barley is bad, Oats are bad, rice is bad, adzuki is bad, green peas are bad and a bunch of others, but it never used to be that way once. lf you dare buy from any company that mentions the word `sprouting', the prices are so high as to become unaffordable. For eg, l can get high quality alfalfa for $30 a kilo, but if l go to a sprouting company they want to charge me $60 a kilo. l can get lentils for $8 a kilo, but if l go through a sprouting company l get the exact same ones for $27 a kilo: http://sprout.net.au/sprouting/sprou...ing-seeds.html l refuse to overpay for seeds to line greedy people's pockets, NO WAY!!! l have sent that company emails and have phoned them various times letting them know l want a large bulk order and buy equipment, but never have they ever contacted me back. lt doesn't give me faith in their business. Haven't even been able to get alfalfa for 12 months, all l have is old seed left.

Suggest you try to get a job working for these sprouting companies. Find out their suppliers and take it from there.

[Living Food]

Is there anything good to soybeans? I know everyone is scared as heck of them, but can soybeans somehow be consumed if sprouted?

Never consume soybeans without fermenting them for a suitable amount of time first, even sprouting them doesn't remove anywhere near all of the antinutrients and the like.

Well it's just soy beans have unparalleled nutrition of all the legumes don't they?

No. For the most part soybeans are not fit for human food unless they go through very extensive fermentation. And even then only in small amounts.

Still...if my current sproutable sesame hasn't gone bad by summer l will give it a go and make a silt loam with a ratio of 40% sand, 40% silt, and 20% clay and try to keep the soil dry with good drainage. l won't know what l am doing, but l will try lots of various ways and try to make it work.

You don't know how to grow anything other then sprouts? I'd suggest you look into organic, traditional and/or biodynamic growing methods. If you grow the sesame seeds in poor soil they will produce poor sprouts. Hint: there's no such thing as too much compost.

Maybe it would be better if you sent the seeds (or some of them) to farmers to grow.

[MysticTree]

Depending on what you are growing, you certainly can have too much compost but it's not the greatest worry.

[Living Food]

What I meant by that was to use lots. It's possible to use too much but generally the more the merrier.

[delmar]

Australia is not the right cliamte for growing chia so they must always use chemicals on the crop to make it grow, so if l grew it myself l would unlikely be sucessful.

Perhaps you need to set up a greenhouse

Besides, there is no point growing it myself when all my seeds are non organic.

I am not sure there is no point. If you started with non organic seeds, but grew the plants with organic methods the plant would, for practical purposes, be organic, especially after the first generation.

[Zoefzoef]

There is so much info in this thread that I might have overlooked the answers I have been looking for regarding sprouting.

My family has been raw for about a month now. We (mostly my husband) started experimenting with sprouting different grains, seeds and beans.
I took some directions from http://www.sproutpeople.com. I read there to just use an oleander because if your sprouts can’t breathe while growing - they can die and they also need some light for the photosynthesis.

I am not sure if it as to do with that, being in the open air, maybe in combination with the hot weather, but I found that all the sprouts, no matter what seed or bean, had a terrible smell, very soon after the initial soaking time. My husband didn't really notice or didn't really care. We kept rinsing them at least twice a day. My husband started two batches of different sprouts for me before he had to go out of town for a week. But the other day day, before they actually fully started to sprout, I came home and already at the door, far away from this kitchen, I smelled this awful waft. It made me nauseous. Early on on our raw journey I was very hungry and ate something that had fermented after being in the fridge for a few days. I ended up throwing up all night and felt sick the rest of the next day. So now I feel I have to be much more cautious. So I ended up throwing out all the soaking sprouts before they were even done. I felt very bad about throwing away that much potentially good food, but I just couldn't deal with the smell.
So now I am wondering if this is normal, or if we are doing something wrong in the process or if I am just hyper sensitive....

Any thoughts?

[SunshineMN]

If I even get the slightest whiff of offensive smell from my sprouts I toss them. We've only had problems with that if we don't rinse them often enough. We keep them in the room that has a window air conditioner during this very hot weather, otherwise I'm not sure we'd ever get edible sprouts. We do live in a mobile home though and it can get really hot in the kitchen, the sprouts aren't in the kitchen. When it's cooler we can manage only rinsing twice a day but this summer we rinse them every 8 hours. Are you sitting them all close together? We leave some space between our jars so they also don't transfer more heat between them. If you're using a bunch of colanders, which is what I'm assuming you meant to say, then maybe try a small slow blowing fan pointed at them or a rotating fan from a distance. You wouldn't want full out fan on them or they will dry out.

[Zoefzoef]

I took some directions from http://www.sproutpeople.com. I read there to just use an oleander because if your sprouts can’t breathe while growing - they can die and they also need some light for the photosynthesis.

I am not sure what the correct word in English is (English is my third language...). I thought it was oleander, but that doesnt sound right. Maybe sieve? A strainer kind of thing...

[MysticTree]

I am not sure what the correct word in English is (English is my third language...). I thought it was oleander, but that doesnt sound right. Maybe sieve? A strainer kind of thing...

Colander :o)
Oleander is a rather pretty shrub!

[Living Food]

Zoefzoef, what are you sprouting and how long are soaking the seeds? Are you separating any split seeds from the rest? If you don't then those seeds will mold and it will spread to all of the other sprouts too.

A simple trick to mitigate rotting/molding is to add a little hydrogen peroxide (food grade) to the soak water and rinse water; 1 teaspoon to 2 cups water is a good ratio.

Some sprouts do better in colanders, some in jars, some on trays; try varying your sprouting method and see how it goes.

Keep in mind that you might just have a bad batch of seeds, and it might behoove you to start over with better stock if my other recommendations don't work for you.

[Zoefzoef]

Thanks everybody that is all very good advice!

[The Sproutarian (Mr Raw)]

The new order has just come in. 100 kg of green peas for sprouting. l'm really going to be hitting the pea shoot juice hard over the next 12 months. Tomorrow l will order another 10kg of fenugreek and 10 kg of buckwheat.


Feeling really good, but now it's time to get some motivation to take the raw food lifestyle to it's highest level....time to try and live and green juices only, exercise each day, meditate, do wheatgrass implants each day and do regular enemas. lf l can get really focussed and motivated about the journey, l know l can do this. lt will be interesting to see how great l feel doing the complete lifestyle, and it will make a great story to talk about. l think it's time to get some quality pro-biotics, enema/implant equipment and set up an action plan with highly regarded raw foodest Dr Green (my doctor...he eats raw vegan and does green juices, meditation and detox). l will also extend my shelf space outside so l have more space for growing greens for implants.