Sprouting Wheat Berries

Repurposed Ricotta Cheese Container

Since I'd used up a container of ricotta cheese the night before which had a nice little basket in it, I decided to repurpose that container and basket for sprouting. As you can see from the photos, it worked well for the wheat berries (tho a few did get through at the beginning before they started to swell) I decided to eat 1/2 of them as minimally sprouted to see what that was like, and left the other half out to continue sprouting, to see how that goes. They were chewy and a nice addition to my breakfast, in a way that my body will be able to process more efficiently, and from what I've read are a safer way to eat grains for diabetics. I'm still experimenting with it, but so far my blood sugars have been fine even when eating a breakfast on the higher end of my carb goal, and presumably that is because they were grains with a higher protein count such as quinoa, and because I'd sprouted them. I'll keep testing and see what happens.


There are a lot of videos and even books about sprouting wheat, why you would want to do it, how to do it, various stages and why they're good, etc. This article has a lot of great information and is a pretty easy read: http://www.keeperofthehome.org/2011/04/getting-started-sprouting-wheat-berries.html

Here's a few videos I found helpful:
Clear and simple instructions: http://youtu.be/QX21C-tUSIc

Quick and easy description video about how to sprout wheat: http://youtu.be/Gesb9ZzBjz4

Video about the health benefits of wheat grass (which is apparently what you get if you let the wheat keep going after it sprouts): http://youtu.be/__DxSzcfMSo

I'm not a dietitian so I'm not going to go into why it's good to sprout various grains, beans, nuts, etc. However the link at the top of this blog entry does, and I would suggest reading it if you're looking for some answers.

One thing I've learned is to leave 3 times as much room for water as wheat berries because they will absorb the water and they will expand. I found this very helpful because it expands about 2 times it's original size by the end of the first 10 hours, and even more in the last 10. You can sprout it longer than 20 hours, but I was only going for a small amount of sprouting, called minimally sprouted wheat berries, for some breakfast cereal.

I also looked up how to sprout lentils (http://web.stagram.com/p/281779536124382744_220092754) and quinoa because I've got a lot of each in the pantry, and this guy had some really clear and simple videos that gave me the confidence to just go ahead and try it. This one is my favorite because he talks about how there are a variety of sprouting methods: http://youtu.be/LvPJvxxfJps