Sprouting in the Tropics

Sprouts in my kitchen in Tema, Ghana I love eating fresh greens, but  – ironically – found them hard to come by here in the tropics. So I have turned to making my own through sprouting.

Sprouting is soaking a seed and then letting it grow a sprout, only to the eat the crunchy sprout for lunch!

It is a supereasy DIY-project, all you need is a sprouting jar (it is supposed to work with any jar and a mesh net for draining, but that has never worked for me),  some seeds to work with and clean water. Read more at the informative SproutPeople site.

In the picture you see mung beans in the green jar in the back (the most common sprout in the world, thanks to the Chinese kitchen) and in the wider brown bowl in the front, I grow leafy Alfalfa, here only one day old sprouts.

The sprouting jars I bought in Germany. The mung beans I got at MaxMart (local shopping center here in Ghana)  the other day for about 5 GHC for a bag I believe will last me through summer 2012, as you need just a tablespoon for a jar full of sprouts. The alfalfa seeds I brought from Sweden.

The advantage of sprouting in the tropics are many. You always have greens at home for your salad, sandwich and stirfry. You know they are clean as you grew them yourself. It is environmentally friendly food with no packaging, very little transport per jar of food and hence also cheap.

Do you sprout? Does anyone know where I can find seeds to sprout in Ghana?

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3 Comments

  1. I live in Dakar Senegal and my friends tell me that you can’t makes sprouts here–they just rot. I’m trying right now however, but it doesn’t look like they are going to sprout. Any suggestions?