Grow Your Own Sprouts: Hippocrates Greenhouse Manager Brian Hetrich Shows Us How

HHI

Sunflower sprouts are an excellent source of phytosterols, which reduce cholesterol, enhance the immune system, and decrease the risk of certain cancers.

Want to incorporate healthier foods into your diet but don't have the budget to be splurging on expensive organic eats? That's OK. We feel you. Instead of buying expensive food, we suggest growing your own. Even if you weren't blessed with a green thumb and don't have an inch of outdoor space to spare, you can still grow your own nutritious, raw, living food right at home. No dirt, weeding or tilling required.

How? None of the ordinary rules apply if you're growing sprouts, according to Hippocrates Health Institute greenhouse manager and naturopathic doctor Brian Hetrich. The process feels more like prepping food than actual gardening. All you need to get started: sprout seeds, a glass Mason jar, and mesh lid.

See also:
- Hippocrates Health Institute: Raw Vegan Eats
- The Hippocrates "Sex" Salad Recipe

At Hippocrates, Hetrich grows sprouts including alfalfa, buckwheat, sunflower, lentil, radish, broccoli, mung, and lentils for the salad bar that feeds guests going through the Life Transformation Program. Once every few weeks, he also teaches a class on how to grow your own sprouts at home, a good place to start for those interested in following the Hippocrates raw vegan diet.

Sprouted red and green lentils.

According to the Hippocrates ethos, living foods are an integral part of healing through food. By the natural process of transmutation, the vitamin, mineral, enzyme, phytonutrient, and amino acid (protein) content of sprouted food can be up to 30 times more available than that of raw vegetables, making sprouts a true "super food." They are also biogenic, or capable of creating new life when planted, and will transfer this life-force energy to your body through consumption, said Hetrich.

"Sprouting [seeds] releases dormant enzymes that make [sprouts] more nutritious than any organically grown vegetable," Hetrich told Clean Plate Charlie during a recent interview. "Because of this superconcentration of natural enzymes, sprouts are easily digestible, and their nutrients are more bio-available."

Full of antioxidants and a full profile of enzymes, vitamins, and minerals, sprouts have a long history as a "health food." And because they also contain an abundance of highly active antioxidants that prevent DNA destruction and protect us from the ongoing effects of aging and cellular breakdown, recent research shows they can have an important curative ability as well, said Hetrich.