Sprouted hummus tastes awesome and it’s good for you. It’s a double win. I made a batch the other day and have posted my recipe below. Feel free to make all the adjustments you want based on how you like your hummus. Whatever you do though, I really recommend switching in the sprouted garbanzo beans for the canned ones. You retain some extra nutrition, the texture is lighter and fluffier, and the sprouts give the flavor an extra dimension of complexity.
What you need:
2 Cups of Sprouted Garbanzo Beans
3 Tablespoons of Tahini
2 Cloves of Garlic (minced)
3 Tablespoons of Olive Oil
1/2 Teaspoon of Salt
Juice of 1 Lemon
Simple Directions:
1. Mix everything in a food processor.
2. Eat it.
I ate it with some homemade pita which was surprisingly easy to make. I recommend giving it a shot.
October 31, 2009
By growing and eating your own sprouts, you get a nutritious meal with a side of cold hard cash piled higher than a pastrami sandwich from the Carnegie Deli. To demonstrate, I put together a little comparison for you. I decided to compare sprouts with some lunch items. This is when I would be more likely to eat a bowl of sprouts as a meal and I figured it would make for a more realistic comparison.
To figure out the sprout cost, I started with a 10 lb bag of seeds for about $32.00. This is about 20 cups of dry seeds (give or take). To make 1 cup of sprouts, you need about ¼ cup of dry seeds. With the help of some basic math, you can figure a bowl of sprouts setting you back about 40 cents. You can buy yourself some sprouts by clicking here.
So check it out…
Sprouts: $0.40
Subway’s $5 Foot-Long: $5.00
Burger-Centric, Fast-Food Value Meal: $5.00 (approximation)
Arby’s 5 for $5 Special: $5.00
Little Caesars Hot-N-Ready Pizza: $5.00
From a lunch perspective, sprouts can save you about $4.60 per day. This translates to the following yearly savings based on how many days per week you eat sprouts for lunch.
1 Day: $239.20
2 Days: $478.40
3 Days: $717.60
4 Days: $956.80
5 Days: $1196.00 (damn!)
What’s that you say? Ramen is cheaper? Well, at about 30 cents a bag, you would be correct. And you could probably slurp up a bowl of ramen every day for lunch for a full year and live to tell about it. By the end of that year, that would net you an extra 26 bucks to go blow at the track. But, that comes at quite a cost. You miss out on all that great nutrition.
So there you have it. Every time you eat sprouts, you win at life a little bit more.
Do you have some hot money saving tips that rival the one given above? Spread the word in the comments section below.
October 27, 2009
Needless to say, I have been slacking on my updates lately. Although I would like to be able to say that I have been busy doing something productive like sequencing my genome or something daring and dangerous like rescuing a defenseless Black Angus porterhouse from a lion’s den, I unfortunately cannot. That would be a stone cold lie. The fact is that a few weeks of blistering heat, no A/C and an occasional impromptu bar crawl seemed to have zapped my motivation for the past two months.
At one point, I thought to look up some motivational tips. However, following through with most motivational tips seemed like a lot of work that I just lacked motivation for. So, to get back in the swing of things, I have compiled my own list of very effective motivational techniques:
1. If a supposed lack of time if holding you back, try out this first tip. Set your alarm to 4:30AM. When it goes off, immediately chug the two cups of coffee that you had strategically set next to your bed the night before. As long as you didn’t go to bed at 4:00AM or later, the coffee should be good and room temperature by this point. Please note that using hot coffee is extremely dangerous and should not be chugged. You also may want to consult your physician if you don’t think your heart is up to the challenge. After you down your two cups of java, squeeze in a quick stretch then crank out 10 push-ups and 40 or so jumping-jacks.
The idea here is that all of a sudden it’s about 4:35AM, you couldn’t get back to sleep even if you wanted to, and you have no plans for at least 3 hours. Ah, perfect time to chalk up a few check marks on the old to-do list.
2. If you find the ability to continuously eat right and exercise to be downright elusive, this next tip is for you. Anytime you feel like you should be exercising but feel too lazy just blow through these two easy steps. First, download Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” and begin playing it on repeat. Next, open up a Google image search and type in “Atherosclerosis.” Keep clicking next until you can no longer reach the computer because you’re busy running on a treadmill.
Mmm, that Monte Cristo sandwich sure looks good, doesn’t it? But before sitting down to eat a deep fried sandwich wrapped in a donut, follow these next two steps to steer yourself back toward a bountiful bowl of field greens and a frosty pint of wheatgrass juice. First, download Toto’s “Africa.” Begin playing it on repeat. Next, open up a Google image search and type in “Diabetic Foot.” Yikes!
3. Do you need some extra motivation to learn more? Unfortunately, once you hit a certain age it gets a little harder to learn new things. As a kid you are forced to learn new things. At some point in time somebody sat down and decided that it was mandatory for me to wake up really early one day in the year 2000 and invest an hour of my life learning about the Teapot Dome Scandal. Thank you for that, society. But now I’m in my mid 20’s and it’s up to me to learn cool new stuff.
The quickest and easiest place to look for new knowledge is TV, but it will only get you so far. The Learning Channel can help you learn a lot, as long as you like to learn about morbidly obese people, midgets, and families with too many kids. PBS has some alright stuff. Norm Abram will show you what you can build with a lots of big fancy woodworking tools. But most people don’t have big fancy woodworking tools. What can you make with a hand saw and a drill? (Answer: an easel and a sprouter, so far)
Aside from wisdomlion.com, the only other place to turn is books. Until recently, I have always enjoyed buying books more than I have enjoyed reading them. Lately, however, I have been on a book reading rampage. I finally discovered my problem. I am reading books that take a great deal effort to get through. As I would start reading a book, there was always that intimidating thicker stack of paper in my right hand that made me feel like I was getting nowhere. I needed something to motivate me to read more.
So, if you are in a reading dry spell like I was and like interesting things like I do, go get some Malcolm Gladwell and Chuck Klosterman books. I may write up some more in depth reviews at some point but for now you just need to know that they write about lots of interesting things and constantly change subjects so you never get bored. Plus, they are easy to read. I could burn through a book in less than a week. So, I recommend slipping one of these books into the line-up every so often to give yourself some quick wins and keep you going.
September 27, 2009
