WHY SPROUT?
That’s a good question.

I was certainly clueless.

First we got to  organic . . . then we got to raw . . . now you’re telling me we need to eat sprouted nuts?

Tell me why please.  There certainly is a price difference.  Although, with a little work, you can sprout your own nuts
(and other things) yourself.  As a mom, I keep a bag of raw sprouted almonds in my car at all times along with some
fruit to make sure none of the kids strave for too long.  So know that raw AND sprouted tastes good.
So still the question WHY?

While it’s important to me to make sure my family eats well, I couldn’t remember why we went to sprouted.
After doing a little research, I found a great article at www.JigsawHealth.com that explains all the phases of a nuts life
shares

ROASTED . . . RAW . . . SPROUTED?

Nuts come from around the world in a variety of shapes and sizes. Most nuts come from the seeds or dried fruits of trees
and have an outer shell that both protects the nut and keeps the healthy fats inside the nut from spoiling.

After being picked, most nuts are dried—not only to improve flavor and add more crunch to the texture, but to preserve them.
These are what we know as raw nuts.

From there, the marketing of nuts begins: shelled or unshelled, salted or unsalted, roasted, sprouted, candied, spiced,
packaged, or bulk. But let’s talk about how nuts get processed—and what happens to their nutritional content in the process.

RAW (or unroasted) NUTS. Contrary to popular belief, raw nuts are not simply plucked from trees and sold on a grocery store
shelf. As mentioned previously, most nuts are dried to preserve them and improve their flavors and textures. These are raw nuts. While raw nuts are fairly nutritious and have no added fat, they’re often bland and tasteless.

Raw nuts also contain enzyme inhibitors which help to protect the seed and keep it from germinating too early and dying off.
This also helps to keep the species going.

But these enzyme inhibitors, when introduced into the body, actually neutralize the enzymes your body uses to control
inflammation and aid in digestion. In fact, eating nuts with these enzyme inhibitors can cause the pancreas to swell.

There are only two ways to destroy these enzyme inhibitors: 1) roasting, which also destroys the enzymes, and 2) sprouting,
which keeps the beneficial enzymes intact.

ROASTED NUTS. While roasted nuts have a lot more flavor than raw nuts, there are some definite disadvantages to them:
1) added oils, 2) added ingredients, 3) more difficult to digest, and 4) less nutritional value.

Nuts can be either dry roasted or roasted in oil. As you probably already know, dry-roasted nuts contain less fat than
nuts roasted in oil. In fact, roasting nuts in oil is a lot like deep frying—nuts are dumped into highly saturated palm
kernel or coconut oils, adding about a gram of fat and 10 calories per ounce to nuts with an already high fat and calorie
content.

Then roasted nuts are often heavily salted and almost always have other ingredients added to them such as sugar,
corn syrup, MSG, preservatives, and other additives.

In addition, many people have trouble digesting nuts because of the high fat content. Adding more fats during roasting makes
them even more difficult to digest.

Finally, roasting destroys much of the nutritional content of nuts. Vitamin B, particularly vitamin B1 (thiamine), which
helps produce energy and keep the heart healthy, is most often killed off in roasting.

And, as mentioned previously, roasting not only destroys the enzyme inhibitors, it destroys the enzymes needed by the body
to help with digestion.

So roasted nuts may have more flavor than raw nuts—but at a price: your health.

SPROUTED NUTS. Sprouted nuts neatly solve the nutrition problem of roasted nuts and the tastelessness of raw nuts.
And, the process is not new. It dates back thousands of years and is still practiced today in non-meat-eating cultures
where nuts are a staple food.

This traditional process, called sprouting.  It does not begin with drying as in the case of raw or roasted nuts.
Instead, freshly picked nuts are soaked for 24 hours in water and a pinch of sea salt, causing the nuts to begin germinating.

The nuts are then removed from the solution and slowly dried at a very low temperature with low humidity. This slow drying
process destroys the enzyme inhibitors, releasing the full nutritional content of the nut and allowing the body’s natural
enzymes to more easily digest the nuts.

While much more time-consuming, sprouting makes nuts more digestible, gives them much greater nutritional value, makes
them crunchier, and best of all, releases an unmistakably fresher flavor.

****

As a footnote from me, Debbie, you can purchase either raw or raw, sprouted nuts.  OR, you can purchase raw nuts and sprout
your own (see the instructions below).  It is relatively simple and the instructions below are only from one website.
I have a friend that simply soaks her almonds overnight and then roasts thems for about an hour on a very low temperature.
Last but not least, if you have not incorporated raw, sprouted nuts into your diet, you might want to take a second look:

Almonds
Brazil Nuts
Cashews
Hazelnuts
Peanuts
Pecans
Pistachios
Pumpkin Seeds
Walnuts

Nuts are good sources of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, good fats, and protein.

***

Kim Harris from www.TheNourishingGourmet.com shares that soaking grains is vital to proper health — in fact,  she
says ‘grains that are not soaked equal poor digestive worth and blocked vitamins and minerals.’  She goes on to
say ‘Soaked grains equal better digestive worth and make vitamins and minerals available to absorb.’  Visit
www.TheNourishingGourmet.com for detailed instruction in soaking various grains and extensive recipes.  This is
definitely a ‘thumbs up’ website!

***
Sprouting Instructions (from www.SproutPeople.com)
Yields approximately 1 Cup (1/2 lb.) of Sprouts

Prep 2/3 Cup of seed (nuts) then transfer (if necessary) into a bowl or into your Sprouter.
Add 2-3 times as much cool (60-70 degree) water.
Mix seeds up to assure even water contact for all.
Allow seeds to Soak for 4-12 hours.
Empty the seeds into your sprouter if necessary.  Drain off the soak water.

Rinse thoroughly with cool (60-70°) water and Drain thoroughly.

Set anywhere out of direct sunlight and at room temperature (70° is optimal) between Rinses.

Rinse and Drain again in 8-12 hours. And, perhaps one more…Rinse and Drain in 8-12 hours.
Stop here unless you are doing a science experiment or growing an almond tree seedling.

Note: Almond sprouts are not intended to germinate fully, their germ is meant to bulge but not put out a root.
That is why they are called Soaks.

Also: You can skip that last Rinse and Drain without altering your crop at all!

As always, we suggest that you taste your crop at EVERY RINSE – including the very first – just after the Soak period.
The soaked seeds are already alive and are now super-nutritious – and – they now have no enzyme inhibitors
(a very good thing indeed) so they’ll digest themselves and nourish you.

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Debbie Wysocki is the owner of Women with Dreams and residual Money secrets – companies that empower the average person to live an extraordinary life by teaching how to build profitable businesses in the network marketing arena. She is a wife, mom, volunteer, a top producer in the MLM industry, a real estate investor, author, trainer, and former Beverly Hills financial analyst who is passionate about helping others succeed. Her motto is ‘How you do anything, is how you do everything!’For more information or to contact Debbie directly:  Debbie@WomenWithDreams.com 954-781-6629