I have a sneaky suspicion...

...That nuts, seeds, and grains that are too old to sprout do us little good in the way of nutrition.

I wonder if they are any better for us than plain starch.


It seems to me that exactly perfect storage would be very expensive, and that less than perfect storage would be the norm...and that it would be very easy for stores of these to back up for years.

I have heard that nuts in the shell that are sold around Christmas are actually more than three years old. They could be, I suppose.

I have also heard that merchants of butter have been seeking caves in which to store butter...that 'storage' butter has the outside rind cut off, and then is mixed with fresh butter before sale.

A bakery near here was sprouting all their grains before drying and making flour and baking it into bread.

Which makes me wonder, too...what did they know that I didn't?


There was a book I tried to read, say, fifty years ago..."Merchants of Grain." I wonder if it wasn't written by Peter Newman.

It wouldn't surprise me one bit if lots of grain, and inferior grains, were 'stuck' in storage, at various points.

There was a report that a container pot of grain was found in desert caves and that it sprouted after 10,000years or some other fantstic number.

I know that, after the blitz in London, dandelions and other weeds sprouted when they hadn't seen the sun for fifty years...when the houses above them had been bombed.

Last year the almond growers announced they were going to slightly cook their nuts.

I don't think that was for OUR advantage...though I can imagine they would make argument with that.

I know that some shippers of living foods place a button on their packages which turns red if it is irradiated crossing borders.

In our homes the final proof is if the seeds, etc., will sprout. (I just use canning jars and plastic mesh lids, on the drainboard in my kitchen.)

Maybe we need some guarantee from local merchants. Mung beans are expected to sprout. There would be an uproar if they didn't.

Now...tell me about quinoa...

Fledgling

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