Advances in Plant Sprouts

Book excerpt: The demand for plant foods in all global markets has been increasing along with awareness of greenhouse gases generated from animal farming, expanded sentiments against animal slaughtering and common perception of the health benefits of plant food products. Accordingly, more attention has been placed on green processing of plant foods for the optimization of their nutritional and health benefits. Sprouted vegetable products have been studied and reported in many scientific investigations to qualitatively improve the phytochemistry, enhance the nutritional profile and improve the biological functionality potentials of such vegetables beyond their initial natural states. Vegetable sprouts have been reported to possess aspects that make them serviceable for the management of metabolic syndrome disorders such as diabetes, hypertension, cancer and other health issues related to cellular oxidation of body cells, and antimicrobial bioactive components have been isolated from vegetable sprouts. Advances in Plant Sprouts: Phytochemistry and Biofunctionalities provides a singular source on recent advances in studies about the dietetic and nutraceutical potencies of vegetable sprouts and increases awareness on the possibility of processing plant foods to make them more nutritionally beneficial. Green production is another important aspect of this text since plant foods processed by sprouting are free of agrochemicals, consume less energy and utilize less manpower, making them easy to produce and environmentally friendly as well. Consumption and production of sprouted vegetables has been increasing in recent years, and this text covers the production and nutritional aspects of all the major sprout groups.