Sprouting

Sprouting is one of those raw food practices that I'd always meant to try, but never got around to. It's simple enough, but I kept putting it off. That, coupled with my inability to grow anything(it always dies). But I finally gave it a shot, and it worked! It couldn't be easier either, requiring just a few minutes from your day to rinse the sprouts.

Sprouts are one of my favorite foods, they're awesome for bulking up sandwiches and salads, and they're incredibly nutritious. Seeds, grains and legumes are all beneficial to your health, but they're coated in phytic acid which prevents a lot of the nurience from being available to you. Once sprouted, the dormant seed becomes a live plant. Sprouting also neutralizes phytic acid and the enzyme inhibitors on the seeds, making them easier to digest and more nutritious to you. It also increases B vitamin content, produces vitamin C, and carotene.

Sprouts are also alkalizing on the body, we need a balance of acid to alkaline in our diet to maintain good health. Most processed foods and animal by products are acid forming(stress and environment can contribute to this too). Grains and legumes are acid forming as well, which doesn't mean you should avoid them, but simply be conscious that they need to be balance out by alkaline food, such as fruits and vegetables. By sprouting grains and legumes it makes them more alkaline.

Something to be wary of, however is that not all sprouts should be consumed raw. Some sprouted legumes are toxic until they are cooked, and raw sprouts contain irritating substances to keep animals from eating them. These substances are neutralized by heat, so gentle steaming is beneficial in some cases. Most sprouts are fine to eat raw, and you're not likely to over eat sprouts anyways.

How To 
Sprouts and sprouting kits are sold in many health stores, but they're fairly easy to replicate at home. You need a mason jar(like a jam jar), cheesecloth or the foot of a pair of tights(clean ones!), a rubber band, and seeds for sprouting.

Put about 2 tablespoons of seeds in the jar, then stretch the cheesecloth or foot of the tights over the top of the jar and secure with a rubber band. Fill with water and let the seeds soak for about 6 hours. Drain and let the jar sit upside-down on a slant. Rinse twice a day every day until the sprouts reach desired length! Sprouts are sensitive to polluted water so you may want to use filtered or bottled water to rinse them.

Black Bean Quina Burgers

Continuing along in my attempt to start trying to incorporate more beans into my diet, I decided to give black bean burgers a try. I've been on a quinoa binge as of late, so I decided to throw that in too. I recently watched the documentary Simply Raw:Reversing Diabetes in 30 Days, and it was so awe inspiring the amazing changes that happened to these people simply by adopting a completely raw vegan diet. It's so inspiring to me to see people who had been told that they would spend the rest of their life taking insulin and pricking their fingers be able to completely stop taking any of their medications(it's Doctor supervised, of course), and halt their insulin use. Yet another testament to a medical system which is failing it's patients by simply trying to bandaid the problem with drugs, instead of treating the cause for disease.

These burgers aren't raw, but I ate them on top of a huge green salad. David Wolfe, a raw food health expert, mentions that if you incorporate at least 51 % of raw foods into each meal it stops your body from reacting towards (cooked)food as a toxin. A study by Dr. Paul Kouchakoff shows when you eat cooked food your body increases white blood cell count,  a phenomenon called 'digestive leukocytosis'. This is the same reaction your body has to infection, or exposure to toxic chemicals or trauma.  


I started this blog as a raw blog, but drifted away from raw foodism since I found it restrictive, and the mental pattern of thinking I had 'failed' if I ate anything not raw wasn't really conductive to recovery. Exploring and including more raw foods in my diet is something I think I'm going to try to make an effort at, especially since I noticeably felt the effects of eating a high raw diet at the time. Plus all the summer produce available now is definitely making it easier!! I don't think I'm going to try to make a commitment to going all raw again, but I'm definitely going to make more of an effort to incorporate more raw foods into my diet.


Black Bean Quinoa Burgers


This recipe made about 9 smaller burgers, you could make them larger or smaller depending on your preference. I topped mine with sauteed mushrooms and hummus.


1/4 cup dry quinoa
2 cups cooked black beans
1/2 cup finely chopped onion
1 tablespoon ground flax seed
1 tablespoon dried parsley
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 tablespoons nutritional yeast
1/2 tsp sea salt and pepper(or to taste)

Cook the quiona in 1/2 cup water, bring to a boil on stove(with a lid), then turn heat to low and leave to sit for 15 minutes. Don't stir or peek!

Mix the black beans and seasonings together, and place half the mixture in a food processor or blender. Blend or process until chunky, then mix in with the rest of the black beans in a bowl. Add quinoa when finished, and stir to combine(using your hands is easier). Cook in a skillet with a little bit of coconut oil, or on a BBQ.