The Germinator: From Seed to Sprout

by Peter Barrett and photographs by Jennifer May, March 31, 2011

"Eat more plants” is a common refrain these days, and rightly so. They’re very good for us. It’s certainly possible to thrive on an all-plant diet; meat is after all vegetable protein converted to a different form. But there’s a catch. All seeds—whether grains, legumes, or nuts—contain compounds that inhibit our body’s ability to absorb all the nutrients our food contains. The more you rely on whole grains and legumes for your nutrition, the more you need to sprout them.

Seeds evolved to be indigestible; many of them depend on being consumed and excreted (in a big pile of fertilizer) for their germination. The antinutrients present in their hulls are powerful preservatives: viable seeds have been found in Egyptian tombs. But nature’s way of preserving seeds can work against us, since those protective compounds impair our absorption of important nutrients in the food. Over time, this can lead to deficiencies and illness. Let the seeds begin to sprout, though, and a magical transformation occurs: enzymes within the seeds convert the antinutrients into nutrients. Seeds are storehouses of nutrition, but they’re also factories for generating even better nutrition and as such they don’t work until they’re switched on.

Philip Domenico, PhD is a Woodstock-based microbiologist specializing in infectious diseases who has spent 40 years studying nutrition. He advocates sprouting as many of the seeds we eat as possible: “We want to turn to unadulterated foods because they’re wholesome, and yet they are often full of antinutrients that can hurt us. Sprouting is a process of predigesting food that makes it much easier for us to absorb nutrients. Proteins are broken into amino acids, and long carbohydrates into simple sugars. There’s less stress on the pancreas, since because of the enzymatic activity in sprouts we need to produce fewer digestive enzymes of our own.”

There are many different anti-nutrients present in seeds, but phytate is among the most serious. Phytic acid is a snowflake-shaped molecule with six phosphate groups around the outside, which bond readily to the minerals in our food. As a result, those sequestered compounds pass through our systems without being absorbed; we end up getting much less from our food than we could. Iron absorption suffers, and calcium is especially susceptible to bonding with phytate. Domenico likens it to “stealing from our bones.”

Many of our bodies’ enzymes require these minerals as catalysts. Since phytate reduces the amount of available minerals, our natural defenses lack what they need to do their jobs. Metallothyamine, for example, which chelates heavy metals, needs zinc in order to function. If much of the zinc we eat passes through us unused, enzyme function will be inhibited. Over the long term, even a small reduction in the efficiency of our bodies’ chelation can result in a significant accumulation of toxic metals. Other enzymes function similarly, digesting everything from protein to carbohydrates. Tannins in seed hulls bond to protein, preventing assimilation, which can be especially problematic for vegetarians.