Dr. Weeks Comment: Gratefully, I learn a lot, frequently, from my patients. Thanks to Tom for turning me on to the EasyGreen sprout farm – cheap, easy, great production and an elegant way to incorporate the healthiest of veggies (sprouts) into your diet. See www.easygreen.com and read below.
I share this information freely and receive no payment from anyone on this. Just a frank endorsement!
If You Want to Be Sure Your Food Is Safe, Grow It Yourself
It’s hard to recall a worse year for food recalls than 2007. Everything from Pizza to Spinach, from Soy Milk to Salad Dressing, from Tortillas to Tofu, tomato and more got pulled off the shelves and splashed across the news because they contained a little more than we bargained for. E-Coli contamination for one as well as other harmful chemicals.
It’s enough to ruin your BBQ when a million pounds of chopped meat needs to be sent packing because it packs a bacterial wallop that can lead to potential food poisoning. Yes, 2007 was the year that taught us to keep our eyes wide open every time we buy anything.
The question is what can we do short of selling the house and buying a farm? A good answer is to grow what you can yourself and head for your local farmers market to buy the rest. There’s one in almost every town. Not only do they have all the elements of a positive food chain, local, fresh, slow, and safe, they also keep small, non-industrial farms alive and growing.
For those of you who can’t get to one as often as you’d like, there’s a way to bring the farmers market to you. It’s called the Easy-Green Mikro Farm and it lets you grow a delicious variety of fresh healthy baby vegetables right on your kitchen counter top to bring raw food health to everyone in your family. Sprouts are an integral part of the raw food health revolution that’s sweeping the planet.
If sprouts make you think of VW buses, Granny Glasses and Birkenstocks you’re in for a delicious surprise. Sprouts are really baby vegetable and micro greens in their first stages of growth. They’re a great source of raw food health because they’re packed with vitamins and minerals in an easy to digest and easy to absorb form. According to Sol Azulay, creator of the Easy-Green Mikro Farm (easygreen.com) an ingenious and fun to use sprouting system, “The best reasons to grow your own sprouts isn’t just the many health benefits, it’s also the taste. Nothing could be fresher, more vibrant or better tasting that tossing a handful of freshly harvested sprouts into your salad. Sprouts are one of the best, easiest, healthiest and tastiest sources of raw food”.
The Easy-Green Mikro Farm is like having a farmers market taking place every day on your counter top. Imagine a source of healthy, delicious, nutritious and safe raw food growing right there, under your watchful eye. No fear of E-Coli, no fear of constant recalls that seem to be an everyday part of our food supply. You can’t get fresher, you can’t get more local. You can’t get more organic or safer than growing you own right in your own kitchen. And it doesn’t get any easier than the Mikro Farm.
It’s an attractive, automatic, space saving little device, just 18” by 24” that lets you sprout a wide variety of tasty baby veggies that go from seed to sprout in just a few days. Warm humid climates like Florida can make sprouting more difficult, but the Easy Green Mikro Farm is designed to produce results no matter where you live, or what the average temperature or humidity is.
Because the Easy Green Mikro Farm does everything automatically, there’s no need to continuously rinse or soak the seeds and you’ll have your sprouts to enjoy faster than with conventional systems. You can even choose to grow some varieties, like wheatgrass or sunflower seed sprouts in soil, not just water and the Easy Green Mikro Farm food grade trays and cartridges can go right from the sprouter to the refrigerator for easier storage. And while other sprouters use recycled water which can become contaminated with inhibitors (and others), the MikroFarm is the only one that drains used water and uses continuous fresh water for sprouting.
Sprouts really are living vitamin and mineral factories and because they’re a predigested raw food they have a higher biological efficiency than whole seeds. According to Sol Azulay, “Raw food, especially sprouts have been shown to help overcome protein deficiency anemia and have a regenerating effect on the human body because of their high concentration of RNA, DNA, protein and essential nutrients that are found only in living cells. No artificial or manufactured supplement can equal the effects of living raw foods on our body or our health”
Nutritionists worldwide often call sprouts the perfect food. They are rich in nutrients. They contain more anti-carcinogenic properties than most other foods and are thought to contain one of the most potent cancer fighting properties known. They provide 5 times the amount of Vitamin C and B-Complex vitamin and proteins than a lettuce salad. Sprouts have as much protein as meat and eggs and as much vitamin C as orange juice and as much vitamin A as carrots. So they’re a must especially for vegans or vegetarians who want to be sure their diet is balanced. (Source: Indian Parenting .com) You can also dehydrate sprouted beans and grains and use them to make bread and as a base for pasta and even pizza. So you’re not only insuring the safety and quality of your food but extracting the full economic benefits of growing your own. According to scientists at John Hopkins University “You’d have to eat a full helping of vegetables to get the health benefits of a spoonful of broccoli sprouts and the sprouts had the same cancer fighting chemical, Sulforaphane, at concentrations 20 – 50 times higher.” (Source: Time Magazine 9/29/97)
In this age of questionable products and questionable sources there’s nothing as reassuring as knowing exactly where your food is coming from and how it’s grown. With technology like the Easy-Green Mikro Farm you know the answer. Its right from your own kitchen counter.