Let's start at the beginning: What Are MicroGreens?
Microgreens stand out as a notable functional food with the potential to enhance both health and lifespan. Their ease of cultivation at home, coupled with financial benefits, makes them an appealing dietary addition. Visually, texturally, and sensorially diverse, microgreens offer a unique and enriching culinary experience. Their short growth cycles allow for efficient, pesticide-free production, promoting environmental sustainability.
Specifically, a microgreen is the emerging seedling of a vegetable or other edible plant, harvested just after the very first leaves develop. Those first leaves are called cotyledons (pronounced kaa·tuh·lee·dns) and are not “true” leaves. True leaves are the secondary leaves that develop in the next phase, called the vegetative stage (e.g.: baby greens).
At the seedling stage plants are still considered a living food because they are harvested during their formative phase, before reaching maturity.
If you’ve eaten microgreens before then you already know that these tiny greens pack BIG flavour. If you haven’t, you’re in for a treat. Typically microgreens taste much like their full grown counterparts, though often their flavour is richer and more dimensional.
Some varieties even deliver other, hidden and unexpected flavours.
func·tion·al food
/ˈfəNG(k)SH(ə)nəl fo͞od/
noun
another term for nutraceutical; a food containing health-giving additives and having medicinal benefit.
Not Sprouts
Sprouts are essentially germinated seeds. Generally sprouts are germinated in water, often using sprouting jars designed specifically for this purpose.
In contrast, microgreens are immature seedlings which are grown in a medium of some type, typically a soilless medium like coconut coir, peat moss or hemp. They can also be grown hydroponically without a medium, or in potting soil (though for food safety reasons soil is not recommended).Research shows that come varieties of microgreens contain certain nutrients not available at other stages of growth, including the sprouted stage.
