12 Steps to Whole Foods

Sprouting and Dehydrating
it at room temperature in the pantry, it will mold in warm weather. Put anything chewy or not completely dry in
the fridge, if you won’t be eating all of it in a few days.
IMPORTANT! Always drink water with a dehydrated food, because those foods will rehydrate in your stomach, pulling
liquids from anywhere it encounters them. Without moisture, the mucilaginous foods like flax do less
good, because they cannot absorb toxins on their way through the body and are instead sticky and
looking for hydration.
In general, I recommend drinking no water 20 min. before or 90 min. after a meal, since water dilutes the
gastric juices (pyloric and hydrochloric acids) needed for digestion. Try to get in the habit of drinking two
glasses of water no sooner than 30-60 min. before each meal. However, an important exception is that with
dehydrated fruits, crackers, etc., you must add the water that dehydration has removed by drinking a glass of
water with it.
Money-Saving Tips
• Nuts, seeds, and legumes can be fairly inexpensive when bought in bulk. After you experiment with
small amounts from the bulk foods area of your local health food store, and you figure out what types of
sprouts you like and will use, find a local buying co-op (such as Azure Standard, which has everything
you can get at your health food store) and buy a few pounds or more at a time, to save significant
amounts of money.
Ask someone you know who is “into” nutrition and health who she knows, then call that person, and so
on, until you find the healthy buying co-ops. I am in at least half a dozen local co-ops. That includes
one I run myself for group buys, as well as a couple of community-supported agriculture (CSA) organic
co-ops. Joining a CSA is a great idea to keep your local growers in business and reduce the carbon
emissions you are responsible for, since local food doesn’t require lots of fossil fuel to transport.
If you cannot find an Azure Standard buying co-op, you may be able to start one by contacting them
(azurestandard.com) to inquire about a monthly drop-off for you and others near you who want to eat
right and save money, as several 12-Steppers have done in California, Canada, and the Pacific
Northwest.
• You can buy a clover/radish/alfalfa mix, but if you buy them individually and mix them in gallon bags,
you save significantly. I leave the radish out because I want the mild flavors to use mostly in granola
(and radish seeds have a “kick”).
• I have a large freezer in my garage, in addition to the two small freezers in the side-by-side refrigerators
in the kitchen. I use the deep freeze to store gallon Ziploc bags of alfalfa-clover seed mix, sunflower
and pumpkin seeds, almonds, and cashews (cashews are not generally fully raw and, therefore, will not
sprout).
If I ever had to rely on my food storage, I would depend on these items to give my family live nutrition,
offsetting and improving whatever other low-quality foods we may be forced to eat in an emergency
situation. Raw seeds, nuts, and grains are some of very few storage items that are high in nutrition.
Unfortunately, seeds and nuts will not keep well for a year or more on the shelf, and should really be
frozen if you want them to last longer than three to six months.
206 12 Steps to Whole Foods
© Copyright Robyn Openshaw