This past week, I was teaching a course and someone asked me what I thought about sprouts. As I answered, I realized that this information is so important that I really should share it with you.

I am a super sprout fan. The power of sprouts is one of the best-kept secrets of healthy eating. Do you ever stop to think about the energy inside of seeds? If not, start today.

Look at a sunflower—those big, gorgeous, sunny flowers on the long, strong stem. That comes from one single seed. Isn’t that remarkable? If that tiny seed can transform into a 6-foot plant, imagine what it can do for your body.

You may have heard of “sprouted” seeds. When you sprout seeds, this is what happens:

• The nutrients are simplified, making it easier for your body to absorb and digest them.

• Proteins in the seed convert to amino acids in the body and fats convert into essential fatty acids. Starches convert into sugars, and minerals combine with proteins, so they all become more accessible to the body.

• Vitamins, minerals, enzymes and proteins multiply 300-1200% in a sprouted seed as compared to a fully matured vegetable. Enzymes are essential for all your body’s functions. In fact, sprouts can have between 10 and 30 times more nutrients than the best vegetables on earth!  You can get more nutrients from sprouts than from virtually anything else you might eat.

• As the sprouts turn green, they increase in chlorophyll, which is a great source of vitamin A, C, E and beta carotene. They are also rich in antioxidants, and essential minerals like magnesium, iron, potassium, calcium and essential fatty acids, all of which provide an enormous physiological benefit.

• Toxins in the body are reduced, since sprouts remove excess acids from the environment and make the body more alkaline. A body that is less acidic is a body that is better able to heal and rejuvenate itself.

With a list of benefits like this, what’s not to love about eating sprouts?!

Here are some of our favorite sprouts to try:

Sunflower Sprouts: One of the best types of sprouts for your body. Extensively rich in vitamins and minerals and provides benefits to all parts of your body.

Pea Shoots: Excellent for cancer prevention and lowering blood pressure.

Buckwheat Greens: These babies are great for fighting cardiac plaque, creating elasticity in the skin, and helping digestion.

Lentil, Mung Bean, Adzuki, China Red Beans, Garbanzo and Fenugreek: These sprouts are all good for your heart and for lowering cholesterol. The primary function of a bean is to provide energy. That’s what makes them a great life force food. They help to regulate blood sugar, too. Fenugreek is a particularly healing sprout, good for helping to regulate diabetes and even able to change foul body odor into a more pleasant smell! Yes, you read that correctly—the food you eat affects the way you smell.

Clover Sprouts: Loaded with calcium and magnesium. Calcium needs magnesium to be absorbed efficiently by the body and this sprout has both! They are a micro bean and best grown hydroponically, which is very easy to do.

Radish Sprouts: Loaded with vitamins and minerals, they are great for clearing mucus from the respiratory tract, and they’re a powerful circulatory strengthener. Like clover sprouts, radish sprouts are also a micro bean and best grown hydroponically. (Trust me on this one, anyone can grow sprouts hydroponically).

Broccoli Sprouts: Microgreen broccoli sprouts have 50 times more cancer-fighting compounds than broccoli itself. Broccoli and other cruciferous vegetables also have glucosinolates,  which help block cancer development.

Clearly, sprouts pack an extreme nutritional punch that simply cannot be beat. Add sprouts to all your meals! You can put sprouts on your salad, on a sandwich, in a collard wrap, in a smoothie or even eat them on their own as a snack… a little weird perhaps, but doable!

Be generous with your sprouts. You can eat as much as you want. Many people even feel that sprouts should make up the largest component of your salad (or your wrap or your meal). So go out of your way to indulge your sprout cravings!! And if you grow them yourself, you can have fresh sprouts all year round for just pennies per day. What beats that?!

Here’s what my seed to sprout mix looks like:

Knowing that these yummy little sprouts pack the biggest punch when it comes to nutrition, I’m curious to know what YOU are thinking of doing to add them into your daily routine. They are so versatile and easy to work with. I’d love to hear from you about your creative ways to add sprouts to your food and snacks each day.  Share your ideas by commenting below (pictures, too!).

I can’t wait to see what awesome ideas you’re sprouting!

ps…here is a great table with the nutritional analysis of all kinds of sprouts: https://sproutpeople.org/sprouts/nutrition/science/#alfalfa