Sprouts

sprouts are a great finger food addition to meal times. zac seems to love fenugreek sprouts but we also offer him alfalfa sprouts. i realised he enjoyed eating sprouts when he knocked over our fenugreek sprouting tray into his toy bucket and started shoving them in his mouth! he stood there and ate for ages!
i also try and use sprouted legumes in his food. sprouting greatly increases the accessible nutrients of legumes. i was really surprised to see that sprouting lentils almosts quadruples the amount of protein.
my husband oli makes all our own sprouts.

Directions: soak 1 cup of legumes or seeds (eg mungbeans, puy lentils, alfalfa, fenugeek, chickpeas) for 24hrs. drain and leave to sprout. We use jars with small squares of fly screen fastened to the opening of the jar with an elastic band. This allows you to drain off the soak water by pouring the water out through the fly screen and keeping the seeds in the jar to sprout. The fly screen lets the sprouts air and keeps any bugs out. With alfalfa and fenugreek once they have started to sprout we lay them out on a long flat container so they grow upwards like a patch of grass.