Sprouts - healthy way to eat grams

Indians, across the board, are a pampered lot and celebrate lot of festivals throught the year. The speciality in each festival is the prasadam (offering to God), Sweet Appas for Ganesh Chathurti, Panchakajjaya for Krishnaastami, and Sprouts Usli for Ram Navami etc..

We can prepare very tasty, delicious and nutritious Sprouted green gram usli (Sprouts salad). Green grams are soaked a day or two in advance and let to grow sprouts. These days shops sell the already sprouted.

If you were interested in sprouting here is how. It is easy and can be done at home

1. Soak the pulses ( Green gram, beans, alfalfa) for 2-3 hours
2. Rinse out the water and tie them in a damp cloth knotted or bound with some thread.
3. 36-48 hours later the grains would have grown sprout and be ready to eat. Best time to eat is in the morning.

Sprouts are easy to digest by both the elderly and children and they have plenty of all the necessary nutrients. Other dressing like lemon juice and black salt can be added depending on one’s taste and preference.

Sprouted foods are capable of providing energy, activity, strength to the body, helps in rebuilding damaged tissues and cells and also in retarding ageing process. Research carried out so far on sprouts indicate that Vitamin B increases by 1000%, Vitamin C by 600% and 90% of the cancer cells was arrested by the sheer use of milk extracted from sprouts of wheat.

I highly recommend eating sprouts atleast once a day. If all the benefits are not enough of an incentive here is a starter receipe for the delicious Sprouted Green gram usli

• Take a bowl add sprouts
• Grate carrots, finely chopped onions (optional), Tomatoes or Cucumber, boiled mashed potatoes, finely chopped green chilies, black salt, chaat masala (optional), lime juice and plenty of coriander leaves.
• A teaspoon of coconut grating sprinkled for garnish would really spruce it up.
• Mix them thoroughly and serve