The microgreen way to nutrition

Swati Jain

Have you heard of a new-age and fast emerging category of “Superfoods” that are Lilliputian in size, but massive in health benefits? These are known as Microgreens.

For a long time health-conscious individuals have been including microgreens in their diet because of its potential to fill in the nutrition gap and its disease risk reduction ability. And now because of the on-going challenging times, the rest of the world too is opening up to these little miracles of nature.

Most importantly, you don’t have to make fancy recipes to incorporate microgreens in your diet. Just add them to your salads, sandwiches, juices, dips, chutneys, raitas, dals and subzis. But remember to consume them raw.

The right way of consuming

You must choose live microgreens instead of pre-clipped so that the time between clipping and consuming them is as minimum as possible.

When you’re consuming microgreens, simply follow the principle of CLIPPING-WASHING-EATING a live crop.

Never cook microgreens. Always eat them raw.

You needn’t whip up anything fancy or lavish to consume microgreens. You can easily add them to your everyday recipes. Toss them in your salads. Squeeze them in your sandwiches. Blend them in your chutneys, dips, juices or raitas. Or simply sprinkle them over your dals and subzis.

Popular microgreens

While all the microgreens have different health benefits and flavours attributed to them, there are some that are extremely beneficial and popular too such as:

Broccoli: Broccoli Microgreens are up to 50 times more nutritious than their mature counterpart. They are also a notable source of Sulforaphane — a powerful anti-cancerous compound that’s also greatly effective in removing air pollutants from our bodies.

Sunflower: Sunflower Microgreens contain a whopping 25% protein making it a go to microgreen for vegetarians. They’re also packed with B Vitamins that are required for maintaining good health and wellbeing. A rich source of Vitamin E, Sunflower Microgreens also work as powerful antioxidants that fight the harmful free radicals and delay the ageing of cells.

Red Amaranth: Red Amaranth Microgreens are a great source of Calcium and Vitamin K which helps in keeping the bones strong and healthy, controlling blood pressure and improving vision.

Alfalfa: Alfalfa Microgreens contain a wealth of valuable nutrients including vitamin C that make them an excellent immunity booster. They also help in reducing fatigue, controlling blood sugar and lowering cholesterol levels.

Wheatgrass: Nature’s most effective healer, Wheatgrass contains most of the minerals that are known to mankind. A shot of wheatgrass juice everyday prevents and fights cancer, neutralizes toxins in the body, purifies liver, controls blood sugar, repairs cellular damage, slows down the ageing process.

Grow your own

Microgreens are quite easy to grow at home. And what’s amazing is that the supplies required for growing them are readily available in the home itself.

You can simply use the takeaway/delivery boxes from eateries or small clay pots (gamlas) for growing microgreens. Also, one needn’t worry too much about the seeds at the beginner level since a lot of seeds are right there in the kitchen. For instance, mustard, sesame, chia, basil, moong, chana.

However, one must always use organic seeds and also do a thorough research before sprouting any seed as a microgreen. Since certain seeds can be toxic when sprouted and grown as microgreens. For example, kidney beans/rajma.

The writer is founder “The First Leaf”