What a’sprout it?

By Sydney Rosmann

Sprouts are the ultimate superfood. They’re the two-in-one, fun-sized, packed-with-nutrients little vegetables that make your meal picture-perfect and your body happy.

You can find sprouts for many different food groups, including vegetables, beans and lentils, nuts and seeds and even sprouted grains! They are the perfect garnish for a salad, pizza, soup, avocado toast… literally anything.

You may wonder, why eat sprouts when you could just have some whole grains and vegetables? Sprouts actually have higher amounts of nutrients than the fully-grown versions of their plant.

According to the 2021 Healthline article “What are Broccoli Sprouts? Nutrients, Benefits, and Recipes” by Ariane Lang, broccoli sprouts contain 100 TIMES MORE glucoraphanin (a compound that converts to sulforaphane to produce antioxidants and reduce inflammation) than fully-grown broccoli. This does not mean you should replace whole vegetables with sprouts, but adding these extremely powerful foods to your meals is an easy way to increase your nutrient intake.

One of my favorite things to do is grow my own sprouts. There are numerous websites to order sprouts from and I use True Leaf Market. With over 50 types of sprouts to choose from, I guarantee you will find a few that you will LOVE. My absolute favorite are onion sprouts. I recommend beet sprouts if you want to add a pop of pink to your dish!

The sprouting jar kits are around $15.00 and produce beautiful and bountiful sprouts within one week. The jars, which are the same as mason jars, look so cute in the kitchen and make it easy to snack on the sprouts.

Sprouting is so simple and adding sprouts to your meals adds satisfaction because you feel like you worked for your food… but you really just put some seeds in a jar!

Try to incorporate sprouts into your daily routine. Just because they are tiny doesn’t mean they are any less mighty than other vegetables. Even a handful of them with your breakfast can help you feel good throughout the day.

According to the 2020 WebMD article “Sprouts: Are They Good For You?” sprouts help with digestion because of the insoluble fiber, improve heart health by lowering cholesterol and lower blood sugar levels.

Improving your health can be that easy! Don’t think about health as cutting ‘bad food’ out, but adding more beneficial and nutrient-dense food. And really, sprouts are the ultimate way to do this.

There is no better way to thank your beautiful body than feeding it what it needs to feel good and to perform to the best of its ability. Sprouts are on your side and if you want to give your body a big hug, then feed yourself some sprouts!