Tell HN: 0.61 USD per week for daily sprouts of grains and pulses
Soaking 718g (dry weight) of equal parts beans (black, garbanzo, mung, adzuki), brown lentils, and a double portion of hard red wheat seeds in water for about half a day, rinsing 2-3 times a day for the next few days until the radicle is long enough (this isn't rocket science), and putting half in the fridge while starting in on the rest, lasts me a whole week as the basis for the day's food (augmented with homemade kimchi, nutritional yeast, beets, apples, and zucchini recently- so, not exactly unflavored, but minimal spices and low acidity going in).
The cost, based on the five-pound bags of these seeds I bulk-order from our local food cooperative, comes out to $0.61/week.
I also find that I don't need to drink as much water throughout the day, as the seeds soak up a lot, and I add water for cooking (in the microwave, at 30% power for 10-15 minutes). GERD symptoms have subsided over the past couple months eating like this. Symptoms worsen if I eat too much at once and/or if I consume chocolate, citrus, tomatoes, maybe dairy, and coffee & alcohol (both of which I'd already given up for other reasons).
Sharing this in case it helps anyone make changes towards better health.
55 comments
[ 2.8 ms ] story [ 114 ms ] threadhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPIP9KXdmO0
Also, is there any recommended strategy? E.g. to gradually increase the portion size over some specific time?
Some guy in on HN telling people about his diet. There were no comments. Thought I might start a conversation because I found it interesting. Asked a question that I thought would surely be on the minds of others with an attempt at humour. Kept it short and sweet.
People have jumped in and started talking. I would do it again.
I had intended to include a note about farts being less of a problem than one might have thought, but I think I ran out of time.
Did you choose your blend based on flavor, cost, nutrition or a blend of the three?
Have you considered automating the rinsing with a small water pump and Arduino? Or you've considered and the tradeoffs aren't worth it?
This would rate high on the pointless-tech-o-meter.
Right now I happen to have some beans soaking. Overnight they'll absorb up to ~2x their dry weight in water. If I were to pour remaining water out & just rinse 1..3 times/day, they would sprout in a few days.
This is the nice thing about buying dry legumes & soaking vs. canned: if I change my mind & eat something else tomorrow, 'worst' case those beans would sprout rather than just soak, changing their nutritional profile somewhat. Possibly for the better.
No need to bring in water pumps or (ugh) electronics into any of this.
I chose these seeds based on what I could buy from the local coop bulk order (supplied by Azure Standard in Dafur, OR) and what I suspected would sprout. The oat groats and barley don't sprout- seems like they've been heat-treated? Recently I added buckwheat and sesame; curious to see if they sprout. I figure a variety of seeds is better for nutrition, but I admit I don't really know. "Eat your colors" is about as complicated as I go unless I'm temporarily into some fad or other. This may go that way, but the price is right, it's easy to do, feels good in my body, and has a lower resource cost than other things I might eat. The main downside is that I'm the only one eating like this in my family, and I also cook most of the meals.
To previous concerns about contamination, I don't wash the seeds with anything other than water and friction (to get out rocks and dirt and dust and unwanted plant-parts), because I end up cooking the sprouts until soft. I hope that's enough to kill Escherichia coli.
I don't as yet grow sprouts to make them green and leafy, just until the radicle gets 1-3cm long. Sometimes they green up but that's incidental.
Considering growing wheat grass, but now we're talking soil or other substrate, clipping, blending or juicing; that's too much work, haha.
i've always loved sprouts...but have stopped eating them due to this information.
Sprouts are a raw food. They are safe as the conditions raised and handled. Sprouts you grow yourself with sanitary procedures from certified seeds are extremely unlikely to cause any problems. Sprouts grown at scale and shipped through a network of distribution channels before being consumed… yikes.
Maybe blanching? Dunno if there's a duration long enough to kill surface inhabitants without harming the seed.
I get these seeds from Azure Standard out of Oregon. I haven't dug very deep into what & how they do, and instead just assume that it'll be fine if I do a modicum of safety procedures:
After sorting for rocks (I remember an HN article about how much better the rock-picking hardware-software system has become; I remember picking numerous rocks from beans as a kid, and I often find zero at any stage along the way), I rinse the seeds in water by swirling them around awhile by hand, pour that off, and submerge the lot in filtered water in a glass container, covered with a cloth to keep out insects.
I smell-check every time I rinse, and am surprised that it doesn't smell like it's rotting. Maybe there are chemicals in the hulls that confer some protection? From what I've read from library books (there's a surface-level Doring-Kindersley book that seems a decent start), sprouting changes some of the chemical composition, reducing/metabolizing the "protecting" compounds and spinning up the "grow grow grow!" machinery.
I don't get sick very often, and I don't remember the last time I ever suspected food poisoning, and there's not much I avoid (except the ultra-processed stuff these days, and all the items on the GERD list, which includes onions and garlic, I forgot to note originally).
Farming seaweed is not that complicated and is pretty widespread.
> Today, seaweed makes up nearly 30 percent of the wet weight of all seafood produced by aquaculture globally. About half of cultivated seaweed is red algae and about half is brown; of the brown, most is kelp.
https://hakaimagazine.com/features/banking-on-the-seaweed-ru...
There's also a company called Running Tide "farming" seaweed explicitly and exclusively as a carbon sink technology. Kelp is grown on rafts until it gets heavy and sinks to the ocean floor where it nourishes micro- and macrobiota.
https://www.runningtide.com/
(For anyone else curious, short story is they're basically multicelular algae)
Dulse flakes, laver, kombu, and a few others are available from Maine Coast Sea Vegetables Inc., for one, and if Bren Smith (aquaculturist and author of Eat Like a Fish) has his way, there will be more and cheaper seaweed available soon. I've eaten seaweed since I was a kid (mom grew up near the ocean), and sometimes add a few strips to black beans in the InstantPot for the flavor (again, my mother's influence). My family doesn't seem to mind.
Wheat seeds ($7/5-lb) * (5-lb/2260g) * 204g = $0.63
You're right; the 718g or ~3.5c (after measuring with the scale I just use 1/2 cup scoops now) is about a week's worth of "seed base" for my daily meals. I make a big bowl in the morning and eat it throughout the day, scooping into a smaller bowl.
I have no frame of reference for how reasonable that is, but it's more reasonable than $.25/5lb bag.
There are 1600 calories per pound of dried beans (https://modernsurvivalblog.com/survival-kitchen/calories-per...) 3.5 oz would contain 350 calories.
The average person needs 2,000 to 2,500 calories per day. No, this guy isn't living on 350 calories per day.
This is a lot of bulk and water, so I can eat for a half-hour and feel full and hydrated for hours, but I do get hungry in the evenings when it's best I don't eat too much.
I could benefit from losing 10-20 pounds, but I'm holding steady eating like this, so I'm probably getting those 2,000 - 2,500 calories a day (I'm much less physically active than I used to be). Using smaller bowls, not snacking, and making meals more of a ritual rather than an indulgence might be helpful in reducing total consumption, slowly rather than precipitously. I do like the taste of these one-pot sprout-based meals, as it's a way to exercise control over my environment. That search for control may well be part of the problem.
But he's buying bulk coop beans, so it's cheaper? All the bulk coop beans I can find online are actually more expensive, like $3-$5 a pound.
You're right, my math was wrong. I set up a dimensional-analysis grid thing from decades ago in physics class, and instead of 5lb on the top and bottom, I have 1lb being equivalent to 2260g, which makes the total cost for these ~3.5 cups of seeds per week about 3 USD.
The cheapest 5-lb bag is the brown lentils ($6). Wheat is $7, black beans $8, aszuki $12, garbanzo $13, and mung $14 per five-pound bag.
As someone generally turned off by sensationalism, I'm feeling rather hypocritical now...
Probably this regimen will prolong your life and healthspan but might be not warrented to evade GERD if you are stressed, because de-stressing alone would get you there without having to give up a variety of foods.
It is also my theory that if doctors are right and the #1 cause of GERD is smoking (and I have no reason to believe that isn' true) then 1800-1980 everybody had GERD but people being less stressed and hyperaware of their health didn't notice it as much.
-Prioritizing sleep and acting on that to get enough
-replacing morning coffee with a tap-cold shower, now a daily habit to stay in until I feel the internal response rush of warmth, and not much longer beyond that- no need to actually cool myself down so much, that I know of (I'm not training for significant cold exposure).
-getting outside for regular walks
-journaling as a brain dump, and then burning the writing
-eating a high-fiber, low-added-sugar diet, mostly fresh plants (I'd include sprouts there, and I've since increased the proportion to about $5/week over the initial $3, wrongly calculated as $0.61)
-and being okay with doing nothing else except breathing, just because, and as an intervention if I'm having a troublesome emotional response
Like the carrots and apples and squash grown locally are totally different than the supermarket stuff
TBH this sounds like it could be histamine intolerance.
I go by how I feel after eating, both later that day and in general on a particular set of foods. I have an informal checklist: Are my nails brittle? How's my skin? Am I more irritable/grumpy, ceteris parabus? How's my energy level? Things like this. I figure I get more nutrients than I can reasonably use, and probably waste a fair amount out the other end given the volume of food I like to eat (something I'm working on).
I'll add that these cooked sprouts are easy on my guts much the same way as sushi is, for me anyway; relaxing, really enjoyable to eat slowly, not much bloating afterwards (compared to unsoaked, cooked black beans, a staple in my household until recently- now I sprout the black beans, and we're collectively not as gassy).