Air-grown mung bean sprouts for food.

March 7, 2017October 24, 2018tonytran2015 41 Comments

Air-grown mung bean sprouts for food

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

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(Blog No.56).

#mung bean #sprout #food #no cooking #growing #in air #air grown #no substrate #nuclear shelter #nuclear disaster #stored food

The benefit of growing sprouts in ONLY AIR is that there is no substrate to be contaminated after all sprouts have been collected and there is no substrate waste with horrible rotting smell. It also allows the consumption of mung beans as food without cooking. It requires only drinkable water but uses no fuel.

Growing sprouts in ONLY AIR is also suitable for preparing bean sprouts when sheltering in bunkers after nuclear disaster (to avoid consuming hot released, fast decaying radioactive alkaline Cesium and alkaline earth Strontium nuclei).

1. Growing beans into sprouts.

When beans grow into sprouts, they convert the highly compact stored energy and materials into small plants to continue the propagation of their genes.

The beans need a triggering signal before it enter into this process. In nature, a wrong starting time may mean extinction for the beans. The triggering happens in nature with beans falling into flood water or very wet soggy ground at the end of a rainy the season. After that the sprouts need drier soil to breath and grow. The sprouts will try to grab a substrate with their hairy roots and will grow vertically.

It is easier for human to consume sprouts than to consume the highly compact mung beans. This is the reason for growing sprouts from beans for consumption.

An additional benefit of eating sprouts from stored beans is the sprouts have plenty of Calcium and Potassium, which can supply the requirements of our bodies if we have to wait in nuclear shelters for the short term radioactive Cesium and Strontium nuclei to decay in the outside environment after a nuclear disaster. Mung beans are thus useful grains for short term food after nuclear disasters.

(According to Wikipedia, 100g of beans contain

Calcium 132 mg

Iron 6.74 mg

Magnesium 189 mg

Manganese 1.035 mg

Phosphorus 367 mg

Potassium 1246 mg

Zinc 2.68 mg).

2. Materials.

1a. Mung beans (uncooked and in good condition).

Figure: Good mung beans for making sprouts.

Remember that mung beans will increase in volume and in weight when they become sprouts and only a very small initial volume of beans will grow into a cupful of sprouts.

1b. Two identical clear plastic drink cups with their corresponding hemispherical dome lids.

Figure: A clear plastic cup with hemispherical dome lid for growing sprouts.

3. Making the container for growing mung beans.

Make about 10 perforation holes on the bottom of one cup, enlarge them so that a fully filled cup of water can drip out of these holes in less than 10 seconds.

The second cup is to be fitted onto the outside of the first cup to control the flow of water through the perforations. To stop water from leaving the inner cup the second cup is slipped tightly on its outside. To drain water from the inside cup, the outside cup gradually loosened to let water drip into it from the inner cup, the outside cup is then emptied.

4. Soaking mung beans.

To make sprouts from mung beans, the beans must be first soaked in water until germination. The steps are in the following:

Place 3 layers of beans on the bottom of the inner cup.

Fill water until water surface is 1cm higher than the top layer of beans.

Fit the hemispherical lid on the cup (optional, to prevent spilling if the cup is knocked from its position).

The cup is left standing like that for about 12 hours to soak the beans until they germinate with a 2mm sprout on most of the beans.

Timing is NOW STARTED.

5. Growing sprouts from germinating beans.

Fill the inner cup with water to full capacity. The beans and sprout should be able to move freely in this water.

Loosen the outer cup to gradually and completely drain water from the inner cup.

Empty the outside cup and slip it back onto the inner cup.

Tumble (and also roll) the covered double layered cup to spread germinating beans on the side of the cup,

Lay the cup on a horizontal surface, with the rim resting about 10mm higher than the bottom.

Let the cup rest like that for 12 hour then repeat all the above steps of this section.

Sprouts can be seen growing bigger in each 12 hour period.

6. Results

Figure: A horizontal cup is almost full of sprouts after 30 hours (Top view of horizontal cup.). The cup is double layered, it is made up from a perforated one and another non-perforated one fitting tightly outside it.

Figure: Air-grown bean sprouts are ready for consumption after 30 hours. The double layered cup is standing upright without its lid.

After 30 hours, the horizontal cup is about 3/4-full with sprouts. It should be hold upright and filled with water for well grown sprouts to float to the top for the first harvesting. (Grown sprouts have lower specific gravity than beans and newly grown sprouts).

The cup containing unharvested beans and sprouts is then put through all steps of section 5 twice for another 24 hours. After that the horizontal cup is about 3/4-full with sprouts. It should be hold upright and filled with water for well grown sprouts to float to the top for the second harvesting.

All beans will grow into sprouts if the container have been effectively drained and tumbled (not rolled). Without tumbling, some beans may stick to the side of the cup and may remain under water for too long and may rot, creating horrible smell. Rolling is not effective in preventing rot of beans.

References:

[1]. tonytran2015, Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance, survivaltricks, https://survivaltricks.wordpress.com/2017/02/09/mung-beans-as-grains-for-self-reliance/, February 9, 2017.

[2]. Mung bean, wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean, accessed Mar 06, 2017.

Related HOW TO blogs:

Rice as emergency food., posted December 24, 2016

Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance.

Dried sweet fruits as energy food

Vietnamese sour soup of minty Indian taro, canh chua bac ha

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March 6, 2017August 28, 2019tonytran2015 21 Comments

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Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance.

February 9, 2017August 27, 2018tonytran2015 5 Comments

Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance

by tonytran2015 (Melbourne, Australia).

Click here for a full, up to date ORIGINAL ARTICLE and to help fighting the stealing of readers’ traffic.

(Blog No.52).

#Mung bean, #sprout, #dietary fiber, #nutrition, #sweet dish, #constipation, #self-reliance #crop #rotation.

Mung Beans as grains for self-reliance.

Nutrition requires a variety of food. For emergency you can eat rice to supply your body with carbohydrate for energy but you also need other food to satisfy the complex nutrition requirements of your body. After rice, mung beans are a versatile type of grains to be kept for prolonged emergency and self-reliance.

1. Advantage of mung beans.

Mung beans are the seeds of the plant species (Vigna radiata) of the family legume of plants. The mung bean plants originated from Thailand more than 2000 years ago (reference [1]). As a legume, each mung bean plant has nodules in its roots containing the symbiotic bacteria rhizobia which fix nitrogen from the atmosphere to enrich, fertilize the soil with natural nitrates. The mung bean plants are therefore a essential crop in crop rotation for growing and restoring self-reliant, self-sustaining gardens (using no chemical fertilizers) after disasters.

The beans are of 5mm size and each bean weighs about 0.070g. They can be used as food in many different ways: They can be boiled to make watery sweet dessert or pasty dessert. They can also be made to germinate to produce new plants to restore the garden or to produce sprouts (before they become small plants) to be eaten as food.

2. Selecting good mung beans.

Figure 1: Mung beans of 5mm size.

The beans are of 5mm size and each bean weighs about 0.070g. Select beans with rounded shape and no wrinkle, no mold, no discoloration on the skin, like in the picture.

3. Storage.

3a. Mung beans are dense and 5kg of mung beans can be stored in a small volume.

3b. Mung beans are easy to store. Storage temperature can be from very cold to up to 35 degree C.

They can be stored in jars placed dry ventilated places. As with any other foods, humidity should be avoided to prevent the growth of mold on them.

It is common for Asian families to keep about 2 kg of them in store for gradual normal consumption in food preparation.

3. Cooking beans for food.

Mung beans can be boiled to make a (watery to thick pasty) dessert food. However this requires long simmering and requires MORE FUEL than cooking rice.

Watery sweet:

The beans are first soaked in clean, warm water for about 6 hours for their green covers to loosen, peel off and be shed. Soaking is carried out in a flat, shallow ceramic or glass container with no more than 3 layers of beans on the bottom and no more than 12mm (half an inch) of water above the top layer of beans. Water should be refreshed every 6hr to remove all secretions from the beans which may inhibit the functioning of neighbour beans. Only a thin layer of water is permitted so that oxygen in the air can diffuse down to the beans to reactivate their inactive cells to make the beans germinate and transform the stored nutrients into a softer form. With this transformation, the beans are softer and it would take shorter time to boil them. Soaking should be discontinued when many beans have tiny (2mm) shoots growing out of them. Further soaking after this time would make the dish less tasty.

The beans are then boiled in much larger amount of simmering water (for about 10 minutes) until the green covering layer of each bean is shed and the two yellow halves inside are softened. Sweetener (cane sugar or palm sugar) is then added and mixture is thoroughly stirred for even mixing. The watery mixture is served and eaten as a sweet dessert drink in South Vietnam.

Thick pasty sweet:

Split mung beans are used in this dish. The split beans are first soaked in clean warm water for about 24 hours for their green covers to loosen, peel off and be shed. Soaking is carried out in a flat, shallow ceramic or glass container with no more than 3 layers of beans on the bottom and no more than 12mm (half an inch) of water above the top layer of beans. Water should be refreshed every 6hr to remove all secretions from the beans which may inhibit the functioning of neighbour beans. Only a thin layer of water is permitted so that oxygen in the air can diffuse down to the beans to reactivate their inactive cells to make the beans germinate and transform the stored nutrients into a softer form. With this transformation, the beans are softer and it would take shorter time to boil them.

The green covering layer is then complete removed and only the yellow half seeds are retained. The yellow halves are then boiled in a minimal amount of simmering water until they are softened. Sweetener (cane sugar or palm sugar) is then added and mixture is thoroughly stirred for even mixing. The thick yellow pasty mixture is served and eaten as a sweet dessert dish in South Vietnam. Boiled coconut milk may also be added as a thin top layer of the mixture.

3. Making mung beans germinate naturally.

Figure 1: Germination of mung beans after 7 days 2 hours in my tiny green house.

My tiny green house:

I used two thickness of washed, clean disposable hand cloth stretched on the top of a disposable plastic drink cup to make a moist base sheet for the beans to germinate. The base sheet was given 5 tea spoons of water twice daily. Another identical cup with a small cut was placed upside down on top of this cup to control the atmosphere around the beans.

The germination into small plants:

Each bean is made up of two halves covered in a thin green skin. The two halves of each bean supply stored materials and energy for the growing of a sprout that will develop into a small mung bean seedling. The sprout grows in length to about 5mm and the two halves of the bean separate (4 days). The sprouts grow longer, until they are about 20mm, then they develop many tiny side roots and this make them look fuzzy. At that time there are two tiny leaves growing from between the two halves of the bean. After the leaves have grown to about double the size of the original bean, the green skin is shed to fall down to the ground (7 days). The two halves of the bean is gradually consumed for the growth of the seedling.

The sprouts are considered tasty when they are about to shed the green cover.

If making plants for the gardens, healthy seedlings should be selected and planted on the ground after they have green leaves and before the nutrient in their half seeds are exhausted.

An average seedling weighs 0.50g and an average bean weighs 0.070g. The mung bean sprouts are considered most tasty when they are 50mm long. In such condition each sprout weighs about 0.35g.

4. Using mung bean sprouts as food.

Figure 1: Mung Bean Sprouts served as a (crunchy) vegetable dish.

The advantage of using this food is that mung bean sprouts can be made from mung beans in any needed quantity in about 2 days (see below). Mung bean sprouts are crunchy, they have high fiber contents. This fiber content makes up the bulk for food under digestion and help prevent constipation caused by the compaction of undigested food residues. However DO NOT EAT sprouts which have become BLUE.

Mung bean sprouts also have good nutritional value. The total weight of sprouts has

16% of it in dietary fiber ,

23% in protein ,

and the rest in carbohydrate. Sprouts also have magnesium, iron, calcium (reference [1]).

Eating sprouts provide the body with easily digested fibrous food with much nutrition and enzymes. The food also prevents constipation . Eating sprouts also SAVE a lot of cooking FUEL compared to eating boiled mung beans.

With the recurring shortage of vegetable in EU (reference [4]), bean sprouts may gradually gain popularity as as a source of dietary fiber to supplement lettuce.

5. Accelerated growing of sprouts without chemicals.

Mung bean sprouts can be grown for food within 2 days, rather than 7 days, following the method of acceleration given in reference [3]:

5a. The beans are soaked in water for about 8hr or more until small white sprouts can be seen growing out from the green beans.

5b. The germinating beans are then wrapped in a thick wet cloth for another period of 24 hours, they then becomes bean sprouts which are ready for use in food.

References:

[1]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mung_bean

[2]. Dr. Josh Axe, Mung Beans Nutrition & Its Big Benefits!, draxe.com, https://draxe.com/mung-beans-nutrition/, accessed 03 Feb 2017.

[3]. Swasthi, How to make sprouts at home, Swasthi’s recipes, http://indianhealthyrecipes.com/mung-bean-sprouts-sprout-mung-beans/, Oct 7, 2016

[4]. Iceberg lettuces and broccoli rationed as vegetable crisis hits supermarkets, BBC News Services, http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38851097, 3 February 2017.

Related HOW TO blogs:

Rice as emergency food., posted December 24, 2016

Air-grown mung bean sprouts for food.