The Chinese will also grow sprouts from soy beans.
Cooking Tips
To sprout Mung Beans, dampen two pieces of paper towel, place the beans between them and put in a dark place for two days. The sprouts are ready to eat when the bright white part is 1 ½ to 2 inches long (4 to 5 cm).
Nutrition
Many tout the vitamin C content of Bean Sprouts. This has to be put into context, though: while the vitamin C level in sprouts will become much higher than in dried beans, where there are only trace elements of vitamin C at best, it is still far lower than the vitamin C available in, say, cabbage or peppers. The levels of vitamin A and thiamine that were in the bean will usually decrease, while the levels of iron and B vitamins may increase slightly after sprouting. So nutritionally, you lose some, you gain some — which makes sprouts far from the wonder food some say they are, but still a good food choice.
Bean Sprouts tend to cause fewer flatulence problems, because the elements which cause flatulence — oligosacharides — get broken down to make energy for the growing sprout.
Storage Hints
They will generally only store for a day or two in refrigerators – to help, store them in a container of cold water.
Literature & Lore
“Mung bean sprouts, those crisp, tender bits you find in chow mein and chop suey, promise to be around the large city markets as commonly as spinach. Bean sprouts for the grocery store trade is an idea that had its beginning in San Francisco, then traveled east into Denver, Duluth, Detroit, Chicago, Cincinnati, Boston. New York. All these cities have firms growing sprouts for the chain grocers as well as for the Chinese restaurants and the Chinatown areas. Until the war, the bean sprouters imported mung beans from the Orient; now they are being grown here by the thousands of acres. Largest growing areas are in Oklahoma, Mississippi, Arkansas, California, Georgia.” — Paddleford, Clementine (1898 – 1967). Food Flashes Column. Gourmet Magazine. June 1945.