Sprouts -- The Miracle Poverty Food

I'm not much of a sprouting expert. Can't sprout a zillion different seeds and beans. Basically I sprout a few items that I have found over the years to be easy and reliable to work with -- mung beans for example.

Even so, I am a total advocate of sprouting. I wish it could break away from the reputation of hippie new age kitchen practices and enter into the main stream. Mostly because I believe sprouting can easily improve the quality of life for many individuals living on a budget.

While it is true that I have had the good fortune to make a nice piece of change with programming, it is also true that I have spent a good part of my life living on the financial edge. When buying food on a budget, fresh vegetables are the first causalities.

This is unfortunate. Fresh living food is important to attitude and sense of well-being. Poverty is not the time to let your attitude go.

Faced with the prospect of not enough money for fresh vegetables, I would resort to rice and beans -- good foods but lacking in the things that fresh living foods can provide.

Sprouting to the rescue. One day I discovered (actually re-discovered) that if I put those beans into a jar I could convert those dried high-starch nuggets into living vibrant fresh vegetables.

It takes some planning. It takes some discipline. It takes some grunt work. But with not too much extra effort one can get started on the path of kitchen counter gardening and really stretch your budget.