Are bean sprouts more nutritious than beans?

Soybeans, mung beans, red beans, black beans, green beans... In my country, the consumption of beans has a long history. Beans are rich in nutrients and have many health benefits. In order to promote the digestion and absorption of the nutrients of beans by the human body, people have also invented bean products such as tofu and soy milk.

Growing beans into bean sprouts is also a major way to eat beans. In my country, bean sprouts have a history of thousands of years of consumption. As a "variant" of beans, from a nutritional point of view, the benefit of eating bean sprouts is first to improve the utilization rate of some nutrients by the human body.

Take soybeans as an example. They have a high protein content, but their nutritional value is limited because they contain trypsin inhibitors. During the germination process of soybeans, most of these substances are degraded and destroyed, so the protein utilization rate of soybean sprouts is about 10% higher than that of soybeans. In addition, during the germination process of soybeans, due to the action of enzymes, more calcium, phosphorus, iron, zinc and other minerals in soybeans are released, which also increases the utilization rate of minerals.

The original nutritional ingredients of soybeans contain less vitamin C, but the germination process is accompanied by a large accumulation of vitamin C. Under the same calorie conditions, the vitamin C content of soybean sprouts is more than 4 times that of soybeans. And if it is mung bean sprouts, its vitamin C content is more than 30 times that of mung beans. Some people remove the bean sprouts when eating bean sprouts and only eat the bean stems. In fact, this is a consumption misunderstanding, because most of the vitamin C is concentrated in the bean sprouts.

In addition to vitamin C, bean sprouts also contain higher levels of other vitamins than beans. For example, the content of B vitamins will also increase significantly during the growth of bean sprouts, with vitamin B2 increasing by 2 to 4 times and vitamin B12 increasing by about 10 times. In mung bean sprouts, the content of vitamin K will also increase significantly.

In addition to the nutritional value, bean sprouts are also popular for their crisp taste. Soybeans contain oligosaccharides such as raffinose and stachyose, which are not easily absorbed by the human body and can cause side effects such as bloating. However, as bean sprouts grow, the content of these oligosaccharides will drop sharply or even disappear.

In addition, bean sprouts are rich in dietary fiber, which can prevent constipation and digestive tract cancer, and can effectively clean up cholesterol and fat in blood vessels. Bean sprouts are rich in anti-acid substances, which can play an anti-aging role. The riboflavin contained in mung bean sprouts can also treat oral ulcers.

The bean sprouts sold on the market are mostly soybean sprouts and mung bean sprouts. In addition to bean sprouts, wheat, barley, buckwheat and other cereal sprouts are also rich in nutrients. These sprout foods not only improve the taste, but are also more nutritious and very suitable for consumption.