Nutritional Benefits I

    Although the use of sprouts as a food source for man is as old as mans' use of seeds, it is only in recent times that science has begun to unravel the chemistry of a sprouting seed, and its potential significance in both human and animal nutritional.  Although a dry seed is characterized by a remarkably low metabolic rate, just moistening of the seed can trigger tremendous and complex changes which consist of three main types:  the breakdown of certain materials in the seed (i.e., breakdown of complex fats, starch conversion into simple sugars, breakdown of protein into amino acids), the transport of materials from one part of the seed to another, and the synthesis of new materials from the breakdown products formed.  The only substances normally taken up by the germinating seeds are water and oxygen.  (Research by Embry and Wang [Analysis of Some Chinese Foods, China Medical Journal 35: 247-257.  1921] revealed the total protein content of mung bean seed rose 48%, from 25% in dry seed to 37% in dry sprout, with similar increases in soybean.)

    Sprouts are known for their high enzyme activity never to be surpassed at later stages of maturity.  The importance of enzymes in ones diet has been emphasized by a number of researchers.  According to Tom Spies, M.D. (reported by Garfield G. Duncan in Diseases of Metabolism), "the respiration and growth of cells involve the synthesis of complex substances from simpler chemical compounds.  By means of substances called enzymes, the cells are able to perform these functions without increased temperature and pressure.  Enzymes are catalysts produced by living cells from combinations of organic substances, including the vitamins.  These enzymes retain activity even when  separated from the living cell."

    The nutritional effect of enzymes in animal experimentation was recounted by Brown Landone in his article "Make Cells Grow Younger" (quoted in Nautilus Mag., 1947, pg. 232) - "More than twenty years ago, experiments were made on old decrepit rats.  Their age corresponded to that of a man of ninety years.  They were fed with "immature food", that is, food which had not finished growth, sprouting new stems, young leaves.  The results were amazing.  The old decrepit rats were transformed, and their bodies began to grow younger.  Twenty years later the factor recognized to produced this effect was anxinon (enzymes)...the best anxinon foods I know of are produced in mung bean sprouts."