The American Food & Drug Administration (FDA) now advises that you not serve raw alfalfa sprouts to young children, to seniors, or to anyone with compromised immune systems (either through AIDS or chemotherapy, etc.)
When purchasing, choose only crisp, fresh sprouts; never buy any that are slimy (as if you would, anyway.)
You may be better to sprout your own at home, but the FDA has found that often the contamination problem did not originate at the commercial grower’s facilities, but rather at the facilities where the seeds were produced and packaged.
Cooking Tips
Wash thoroughly under running water; pat dry in paper towel. Do wash them even if they look clean and came in a plastic box; you are washing them to help get any bacteria off them. (Though the FDA advises that to really neutralize bacteria, you’d have to soak them in a chlorine solution so strong that the sprouts would be truly safe indeed — they’d be so unpalatable that you wouldn’t want to eat them afterward at all.)
Substitutes
Buckwheat, fenugreek or other sprouts.
Nutrition
Rich in anti-oxidants.
Equivalents
8 oz = 225g = 3 cups
Storage Hints
Keep refrigerated.