Last week's Bean Sprout Extravaganza involved growing our own lentil bean sprouts and then making them into a delicious bean sprout salad!
We were able to make our own bean sprouts by reusing an old salsa container (you can use any container), and filling the container about ¼ full of green lentils, and covering it with a cheesecloth. You can use any kind of bean or lentil to sprout beans. To sprout our beans we soaked them for 8 hours. The bean will expand a lot so either fill the jar all the way up or check on them every few hours to see if they need any more water to soak in! Dump the water out after 8 hours and put them in a dark space. We want them to think they are in the ground!
Rinse the beans morning and night and drain using the cheesecloth as a barrier. You want to disturb them as little as possible. Different beans require different amounts of time to sprout. Lentils take 5 days to reach a nice age.
It was an exciting process for us, not knowing if the sprouts were going to turn out. Luckily, the sprouts turned out perfect and we were able to use them in our bean sprout salad! The Sprout salad contained: lentil bean sprouts, tomatoes, green onions, cucumbers, lemon juice, white vinegar and a hint of salt. The salad had a refreshing lemon kick to it!
The activity this week involved a BEAN guessing game! Individuals were asked to match the correct beans with the appropriate label. A lot of the guessers were able to correctly match almost all of the beans. The mung and the adzuki beans were the most missed! It was a learning experience for us as well as the guessers!
There are many nutritional benefits to eating sprouted beans as opposed to regular beans. Opting to eat sprouted bean lentils will offer more health benefits because the nutrient content of seeds increases as they sprout! Incorporating any type of bean sprout to your diet will boost your vitamin and mineral intake. Consider adding them to salads or sandwiches!
