what is it and how to grow

Microg­yn (micro­greens) is a con­cept that has become pop­u­lar at the peak of a healthy lifestyle and has become absolute­ly its own in our food cul­ture. In this arti­cle, read more about this inter­est­ing and use­ful nutri­tion­al sup­ple­ment.

In gen­er­al, micro­greens began to be used back in the not so dis­tant 80s. Amer­i­can chefs have added some kind of micro­greens to dec­o­rate their dish­es. After that, they began to add it to var­i­ous sal­ads, first cours­es, toasts and burg­ers. But today, micro­greens are con­sid­ered an inte­gral part of many dish­es, and if ear­li­er it was grown only on farms in the most remote cor­ners of the Unit­ed States, now the cul­ti­va­tion of micro­greens is avail­able to absolute­ly every­one, any­where in our globe, and most impor­tant­ly, it is done at home .

Micro­greens lit­er­al­ly blew up our healthy lifestyle cul­ture and took its strong posi­tion from nutri­tion­ists and nutri­tion­ists.

Micro­greens are sprouts that are ini­tial­ly grown for one to two weeks, then “har­vest­ed” and eat­en with food. To under­stand when we can start “col­lect­ing”, just check the size of the sprout: it should vary from 2.5 to 4 cm.

If you sud­den­ly left the greens to ger­mi­nate fur­ther up to a size of 8–10 cm, then you should know that such sprouts will have a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent name — mini-greens and com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent prop­er­ties. To get exact­ly micro­greens, you need to wait a max­i­mum of two weeks after sow­ing, and also care­ful­ly cut it with scis­sors.

How to grow microgreens?

Grow­ing micro­greens is absolute­ly easy: all you need is a con­tain­er with holes and a drip tray to drain excess mois­ture. Fill the con­tain­er with spe­cial soil and before plant­i­ng the fields with water. After, arrange the seeds loose­ly from each oth­er. Next, light­ly cov­er the con­tain­er with foil and take it to a dark place. After the first sprouts begin to appear, remove the film and place the con­tain­er in a sun­ny place. And the only thing you will need to do for the next week or two, depend­ing on the growth of green­ery, is to keep the soil moist, but it should only be watered with a sprayer.

You can use micro­greens imme­di­ate­ly, but you can store it for a very short time: a max­i­mum of 3–4 days, wrapped in paper, and also, always in the refrig­er­a­tor.

Why is microgreen so useful?

In the 2000s, the USDA Agri­cul­tur­al Research Ser­vice of Amer­i­ca pub­lished the first stud­ies on var­i­ous types of greens. These stud­ies have deter­mined the health ben­e­fits of eat­ing micro­greens and their max­i­mum shelf life. The USDA used 25 dif­fer­ent plants. The main test was the pres­ence of vit­a­mins such as: E (toco­pherol), K (phyl­lo­qui­none), A (carotene) and C (ascor­bic acid).

The micro­greens of cilantro, daikon, red cab­bage and red ama­ranth became the lead­ers in the pres­ence and con­cen­tra­tion of these vit­a­mins. Also, these sci­en­tists man­aged to prove that green sprouts grown up to two weeks, depend­ing on the species, con­tain 5 times more var­i­ous trace ele­ments and vit­a­mins than their more “adult” spec­i­mens (the so-called mini-greens).

The micro­greens of most grown sprouts con­tain a dai­ly dose of vit­a­min C and vit­a­min A, as well as iron, phos­pho­rus, mag­ne­sium and cal­ci­um. Not to men­tion the whole com­plex of vit­a­mins: E, D, B, K and PP.

What to grow?

Let’s take a look at some of the avail­able micro­greens with you:

red cabbage microgreen

Red cab­bage sprouts have the high­est con­cen­tra­tion of ascor­bic acid, accord­ing to USDA data. More­over, it con­tains 40 times more of it than in an adult plant.

There­fore, if you want to strength­en your immu­ni­ty, be sure to include red cab­bage micro­greens in your diet.

Pea microgreen

In addi­tion to being sweet-tast­ing and great with any meal, pea micro­greens are also rich in phos­pho­rus, fiber, and pro­tein. It is pea sprouts that con­tain such com­plex­es of vit­a­mins as: A, B, C, PP, K, E and folic acid. Also, micro­gin has a high calo­rie con­tent (81 kcal / 100 grams), con­tains a large amount of veg­etable insulin and choline.

Pea micro­greens will help you low­er your blood sug­ar, low­er your cho­les­terol lev­els and ener­gize you for the rest of the day.

Wheat microgreen

Fresh­ly pulled young wheat can­not fail to please each of you. Since wheat micro­greens are not only beau­ti­ful, but also rich in vit­a­mins, pan­tothenic acid and oxy­gen.

Due to the fact that micro­greens con­tain pan­tothenic acid, it has a very ben­e­fi­cial effect on our body. This acid helps in the work of the diges­tive tract, and also has a sig­nif­i­cant effect on the pro­duc­tion of hor­mones and red blood cells. Also, I want to note that it is wheat micro­greens that help to get rid of excess weight, because it takes an active part in the process of pro­cess­ing fats and car­bo­hy­drates into ener­gy.

How to use?

When using any food, espe­cial­ly those that are rich in var­i­ous trace ele­ments and vit­a­mins, there are always warn­ings.

Here, for exam­ple, you should not use micro­green for peo­ple with gas­troin­testi­nal prob­lems. And in gen­er­al, those who suf­fer from these prob­lems should refrain from con­sum­ing any fiber, as this can back­fire. And micro­greens of almost any plant nec­es­sar­i­ly con­tain fiber.

There is one more fea­ture of almost any micro­greens. The enzymes that are in it slow down the process of diges­tion of food. There­fore, I rec­om­mend, espe­cial­ly cere­al sprouts, first throw into a blender, grind thor­ough­ly, and then you can add liq­uid to fresh juices, smooth­ies, first cours­es or sal­ads.

I under­stand that not every­one is ready to eat micro­greens, even after I tried to con­vince them oth­er­wise. The rea­sons may be dif­fer­ent, but one of the most pop­u­lar:

• appear­ance (yes, girls, I know that it’s hard for many to over­come them­selves and eat some­thing that “does not look very tasty”);
• herbal after­taste, although it is felt only if you use clean micro­greens, with­out jam­ming with soup, and in fresh juices and smooth­ies, the taste is even more so not felt.

Best Recipes

What is the guide to use with­out pre­scrip­tions? Record the best!

Salad for all occasions

Take car­rots and zuc­chi­ni and cut into small cubes. Add a table­spoon of red cab­bage sprouts to the plate, and after that — every­thing is sim­ple! Pour olive oil on top, add soy sauce and a few drops of lemon juice to taste. You can add flax seeds or sesame seeds. And then, if desired: a few pieces of boiled chick­en, tofu or moz­zarel­la cheese, well, they won’t be super­flu­ous. Bon appetite, dear ones!

Decoration of dishes

Micro­greens are one of the main dec­o­ra­tions of any dish! So be bold­er, you can dec­o­rate every­thing with it: from soup to fresh juice.

toasts

Oh, how great is the black bread toast with a slice of moz­zarel­la, cher­ry toma­toes, dec­o­rat­ed with arugu­la micro­greens!

Smoothies for weight loss

We take a banana, (straw­ber­ries can be added in sea­son), cel­ery, zuc­chi­ni, fresh cucum­ber, mint, lemon juice and pea micro­greens. Pour every­thing with a lit­tle water or milk. You can add some more fruit for sweet­ness. Beat for 2–3 min­utes, and voila! An incom­pa­ra­ble and at the same time insane­ly healthy smooth­ie is ready to drink!

Iri­na Storozhenko, a sports nutri­tion­ist and nutri­tion­ist, answered all ques­tions.

We hope that soon micro­greens will become an inte­gral part of your diet!

Pho­to: Freepik

The opin­ion of the edi­tors may not coin­cide with the opin­ion of the author of the arti­cle.