Why grow sprouts at home?

Sprouts are germinated and soaked seeds, grains, or nuts. These are rich in beneficial amino acids, vitamins, and enzymes. And the best part about sprouting at home is that they are simple to grow straight in your kitchen. Make your own garden in a jar!

Some of them like lentils or chia you can just pick from your shelf, while other you’ll need to get seeds from the store. Make sure you buy organic or those that are not ment to be for “massive” gardening as those might be treated with some chemicals – you definitely don’t want that on your plate.

Some of the seeds you can use to grow sprouts are:

• Alfalfa
• Broccoli Seeds
• Red Clover Seeds
• Lentils
• Mung Beans
• Pumpkin Seeds
• Sunflower Seeds
• Chia Seeds

What do you need to grow sprouts at home?

Sprouting is a simple and straightforward process. You will need equipment created for such purposes, such as sprouting trays. Also, you will require:

• A wide-mouth quart-size clean and sterile jar
• A sprouting lid or cheesecloth and a rubber band
• A box or bowl to aid the jar stand upside-down
• Organic sprouting seeds for the best results

Some of the seeds and sprouts are more demanding than another. Most of them will grow well in a big jar. Make sure the jar is clean, and before sprouting in them, make them sterile (oven at around 200 ºC for 20 mins will do good). It’s easy for mold to start growing, and you’ll have to throw all the batch away …

How to grow sprouts

Soak your seeds overnight

Firstly, soak sprout seeds overnight – or at around 6-8h. Make sure you position the sprouting screen in place and screw on the canning ring. Add around two cups of non-chlorinated water. Afterward, swirl the seeds, drain and cover with an extra 2 to 4 cups of water. 

Rinse and drain seeds

In the morning, drain the water and rinse and swirl again. As soon as you make sure your seeds are drained well, put them in a bowl, and allow the jar to lay upside down. 

Keep on Washing them 2x Day

It is highly recommended to pour water through screens at least two times per day (morning and evening). Swirl, and drain well after returning the seeds in your bowl. Each day your sprouts will grow more! This process can take between 3 to 7 days, depending on the seeds. 

Store sprouts

When you feel like your sprouts reached the perfect greenness and length, you can store them in the refrigerator. It is best to store them as dry as possible. Overall, sprouts last up to five days if drain adequately. 

Enjoying sprouts

Sprouts are best served on sandwiches, mixed with greens as a salad, or as a soup topping. 

What are the benefits of growing sprouts?

Sprouts are a superfood, which you can quickly grow straight in your kitchen. And the best part about sprouting is that they have numerous health benefits. Some of these include:

• A boost in digestive and metabolic processes, as sprouts are rich in dietary fibers.
• An increase in blood flow due to the high content of iron and copper.
• A losing weight ally, as sprouts can inhibit the release of a hunger hormone called ghrelin.
• An increase in the immune response, as sprouts are rich in anti-inflammatory compounds and vitamin C.
• Improvement in eye health due to the rich content of antioxidants and vitamin A.
• A decrease in skin problems due to the high levels of omega-3 fatty acids.

The bottom line

Sprouting at home can be both fun and useful. All you have to do is get the equipment mentioned above and start taking care of the seeds. Keep in mind that the risk of cross-contamination in sprouts is slightly high. The living enzymes might turn out to be dangerous for health if you don’t clean your hands and jars. You can avoid such issues by purchasing organic nuts, grains, and seeds for sprouting. 

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It offers many health benefits that are much better and more significant than refined artificial sugar or any other synthetic sweetener. Despite this, however, care should be taken when it comes to eating honey since it also contains glucose and fructose just like refined sugar. Both honey and sugar can have negative impacts on blood sugar levels in your blood and should, therefore, be avoided by people struggling with keeping their blood sugar levels within the required healthy range.

Therefore, here are ten facts and benefits about honey that probably you haven’t know:

1. Treatment of the hair and skin

Honey is widely employed during treatment of the skin and is known to work wonders with burns, cuts, and infections on the skin. When mixed with milk and consumed regularly, it controls the aging process by getting rid of wrinkles, skin cells that are dead, etc. It also contains humectant compounds which help in moisturizing your skin. Mixing honey with lemon helps to improve the glow of your skin and for treating acne.

It also contains vital nutrients like minerals and vitamins which are excellent for dealing with hair issues like dandruff, hair fall, broken hair, and unhealthy hair.

2. Utilized for weight loss

It contributes to helping users to lose excess weight naturally by enhancing metabolism processes. When used in combination with lime, green tea, cinnamon, and water, precious bee nectar helps to control unwarranted weight gain.

3. Sound health

Honey is considered a good source of nutrients that are vital for the overall health of the human body. However, caution should be exercised to avoid side effects as a result of excessive use.

4. Energy food

It is an energy booster, thanks to the presence of fructose and glucose. These sugar molecules are not combined – as they are in refined white sugar – but are separated. This makes the glucose to act as an instant energy resource.

5. Digestion aid

It reduces gas, bloating, and constipation. It is also very rich in friendly bacteria which aids digestion and reduces allergies. Your immune system can also be enhanced when you use honey.

6. Helps kids to sleep peacefully

Several studies have shown that honey improves the quality of sleep in kids. As observed by parents during the tests, it reduced coughing spasms in children during the night, thereby helping them to sleep peacefully.

7. Precious since mid age

Honey was considered a high-valued commodity by the Germans as far back as the 11th century. It was so precious that the aristocrats in Germany forced poor peasants to pay them using honey as currency. It was in high demand back then since it was the right ingredient to making beers to taste sweet.

8. Boost your memory

It contains memory-boosting antioxidants.

9. Good for your eyes

Is known to have a relaxing and soothing effect on the eyes.

10. It can kill off some internal parasites

Several parasites always find their way into the human body and cause ill health. When honey is mixed equally with water and vinegar and then consumed, the parasites are killed off immediately.

The post 10 Surprising Facts and Benefits about Honey appeared first on Food Converter.

Without much ado, let’s dive in:

1. “Honey-carrying”

Honey bees are scientifically known as Apis mellifer, and this stands for ‘honey-carrying, bee.’ They are excellent pollinators of flowers, vegetables, and fruits, thus helping plants to grow and environmentally friendly as well. They do this by transferring fertilizing powder or pollen between the male and female parts of flowers and this transmission helps plants to grow their seeds and fruits at the end of the day.

2. Living in a colony

Honeybees live in colonies or hives and are divided into three types:

• Drones – These are male honeybees whose sole purpose is to mate with the queen. Hundreds live in each colony or hive during spring and summer seasons. But when winter arrives, the hive enters survival mode and the drones are driven out.
• Workers – They are females and their major purpose is to search for nectar and pollen from flowers. They are also responsible for building and protecting the beehive. Workers can also use their wings to circulate and clean the air. They are the ones that most people see outside the hive flying up and down.
• Queen – This is the bee that is in charge of the hive and her only job is to lay eggs. These eggs are the next generation of bees in the hive. The queen is also known to emit chemicals that direct the activities of the other honeybees.

3. Making the new queen

When the queen bee dies, workers create a new queen. They do this by picking out a young larva and feed it with what is referred to as ‘royal jelly’ which is special food. Royal jelly helps the larva to mature into a fertile or productive queen.

4. Magic food – superfood

Honey, that sweet substance produced by those amazing insects contains several nutrients which are vital for sustaining life. These are vitamins, enzymes, minerals, and water. What makes honey unique among other foods is that it is the only food that naturally contains an antioxidant that is known to improve brain function and is known as ‘pinocembrin.’

5. Speedy creatures

They fly at impressive speeds of about 25 kilometers per hour and their wings beat the air approximately 200 times per second, which is quite astounding.

6. The queen bee

The busiest time of the year for the queen is during summer and that is when she lays about 2,500 eggs every day. She can live for about five years.

7. A short life of working bees

The worker honeybee can only live for about five to six weeks during which she produces a small dollop of honey, about one-twelfth of a teaspoon.

8. Excellent sense of smell

The honey bee has a remarkable sense of smell, thanks to the 170 odorant receptors they possess. They use these odorant receptors for communication within the hive as well as to identify or distinguish different types of flowers when foraging for food. They also possess ten receptors for taste.

9. Dangerous “women”

Only female honeybees sting; the males don’t.

10. The royal jelly food

The only difference between queen bees and worker bees is that the latter receives additional rations of ‘royal jelly’ but they share the same genes.

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The honey-making process begins with the bees visiting flowers, especially when spring arrives. Bees sit on flowers and collect nectar – that is the sweet juice that is produced by different blooming flowers. When the need to gather nectar arises, bees tend to remain as close as possible to the hive and are known not to exceed a radius of 4 miles.

Bees gather nectar by making use of their tongue and creating a sucking action. This way, all the nectar in the flower is extracted and mixed with an enzyme that is secreted by glands in the mouth of the bees. After this process, the mixture is stored in the stomach of the honeybee. In case you don’t know, bees have two stomachs; the honey stomach and the food stomach.

As soon as the honey stomach is filled to its brim with the nectar mixture, the bees fly back to the beehive where they transfer the nectar mixture to other bees – i.e. the worker bees – via their mouths.

The worker bees continue the process of making honey by chewing the nectar mixture collected from the foragers for about thirty minutes. At the end of thirty minutes, a worker bee that has already chewed the nectar mixture passes it to another worker bee. So the chewing goes ahead, and the exchange from one worker bee to another continues until the nectar turns into thick and uniform syrup known as honey.

As soon as this transformation is made, the bees turn their attention to storing the honey. Honeycomb cells – which in reality are not cells – are jars created using wax. This is where all the newly produced honey is stored.

The honey is still wet when stored in the honeycomb; the bees get to work drying their cache of honey using their wings. This process also enhances the quality of the honey by making it stickier. Once the honey becomes dry and ready, the honeybees seal off the honeycomb cells or jars using a lid created with wax. Bees do this to protect the honey from contaminants in the air.

This task is tedious, and one would expect that it would produce a considerable amount of honey. But the opposite is the case as about eight honeybees can only provide just one teaspoon of honey throughout their lifetimes.

Bees make honey so that food can be readily accessible by everyone in the colony. The location also has an impact on how much honey is produced; in the southern part of the United States, a hive can survive on about 40 pounds of honey. But in the northern part of the country, honey that weighs up to 90 pounds is needed for the colony to survive in winter.

The post How Bees Make Honey? And Why? appeared first on Food Converter.

These are the benefits of eating raw honeycomb

• Protection of the liver – Honeycombs contains antioxidants that protect the liver. When a study was conducted to find out how active beeswax alcohol is when consumed by people with fatty liver, it was observed that honeycombs helped to improve the symptoms of fatty liver and normalize liver function.
• Glucose metabolism – The body relies heavily on glucose for energy which makes it vital for sound health. The waxy alcohols present in honeycombs promote glucose metabolism and also help to bring down insulin levels. They also reduce the markers for insulin resistance since the latter can lead to type 2 diabetes and other related health issues.
• Good cholesterol – The fatty alcohols found in honeycombs help in lowering bad cholesterol significantly and raising the amounts of good cholesterol in the body.

You can eat raw and natural honeycomb in several ways each of which is outlined below:

• Honeycombs are natural products, and you can eat them using your fingers. Children and adults alike always enjoy licking honey that oozes from their fingers.
• You can eat raw honey by serving it up with seasonal fruits on a platter. You can even consume this delicious natural product with homemade, organic or gourmet cheeses.
• You can also eat raw honey by merely spreading it on an English muffin, fresh bread or warm buttered toast.
• Simply bite in the honeycomb and enjoy chewing it, just like a chewing gum. You can swallow it or simply spit out what stays in our mouth at the end.
• Variety, they say, is the spice of life. There is nothing wrong with topping your fresh salad with several chunks of raw honeycomb along with goat’s cheese.
• You can also stir raw honeycomb into vanilla ice-cream as it makes a tasty dessert.
• Breakfast is considered the most important meal of the day, and you can liven it up by stirring chopped up raw honeycombs into Greek yogurt and blend them.
• Eating fresh, mashed honeycomb with runny brie, and a baguette is also another delicacy you should try.

A lot of people make the mistake of storing raw honeycomb in the refrigerator. But the best way to preserve the taste, as well as its antibiotic properties, is to store it at room temperature. Honeycomb is nearly always one hundred percent edible, though it depends on how long you store it.

In conclusion, if you were averse to eating raw and natural honey, the benefits outlined above, as well as the numerous suggestions about how you can enjoy this nutrient-rich gift of nature, should be more than enough to win you over. You can – and indeed, you should – enjoy the health-giving goodness of raw honeycomb at any time it pleases your fancy.

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