Did you know mega millet (sorghum) on sprouting develops HCN?

[saroj12]

I found this out several years ago and never felt safe using it again
though dry it is ok, when damp develops hydrogen cyanide.

Cyanide Content of Sorghum Sprouts - PANASIUK - 2006 - Journal of Food Science - Wiley Online Library

 

[Billie Faye]

OK little confussed....you normally don't find "sorghum" grains to be sprouted...
but you do find "millet" and can sprout millet with no problems...
Both are grasses:
Sorghum is in the subfamily Panicoideae and the tribe Andropogoneae (the tribe of big bluestem and sugar cane). it is used for fodder/alcohol/sweetners

Millet include species in several genera, mostly in the subfamily Panicoideae, of the grass family Poaceae. Of the major and minor millets (not including those plants sometimes called millet) all of the species are in the tribe Paniceae of the subfamily Panicoideae except for finger millet.

With the above being said...are you afraid to sprout "millet" because of the reason you stated or Sorghum grains?

 

[saroj12]

OK little confussed....you normally don't find "sorghum" grains to be sprouted...
but you do find "millet" and can sprout millet with no problems...
Both are grasses:
Sorghum is in the subfamily Panicoideae and the tribe Andropogoneae (the tribe of big bluestem and sugar cane). it is used for fodder/alcohol/sweetners

Millet include species in several genera, mostly in the subfamily Panicoideae, of the grass family Poaceae. Of the major and minor millets (not including those plants sometimes called millet) all of the species are in the tribe Paniceae of the subfamily Panicoideae except for finger millet.

With the above being said...are you afraid to sprout "millet" because of the reason you stated or Sorghum grains?

millet is fine.....the so called mega millet aka milo ala sorghum is the problem. My fears are grounded in scientific fact

 

[Merlie]

Saroj is very, very correct on this one. I remember .. about 2 or 3 years ago, I purchased a bag of sprouting mix at one of our local bird fairs.

When I got home, and re-read the ingredients, I noticed a grain I wasn't familiar with called "milo" so I looked it up.

Milo = Sorghum = Super Millet

I returned the bag to the vendor the next month, with copies of articles proving that Milo/Sorghum SHOULD NOT be sprouted, so should not be included in their sprouting mix. She wasn't so nice about it, basically saying they've been using this "recipe" for years without issue. I told her "well, people were also using asbestos in buildings for years without issues, until there were .. big ones actually".


From Shauna Roberts, Sprouting for Nutrition.
One grain to never sprout is sorghum also known as “super millet” because of its cyanide (hydrocyanic acid) content. Dry sorghum has very low levels of cyanide but as sorghum soaks its cyanide content increases immensely which could make it hazardous and perhaps even prove to be fatal. The average amount (61.3 mg) of hydrocyanic acid obtained from sprouts grown from 100g of seed exceeds the average fatal dose for an adult human.



Also, more techie .. but very thorough .. can't remember where I found this, but it's good.



Warning on Sprouting Milo

Sprouting seeds is often touted as offering numerous
benefits. Milo provides an example where sprouting turns a
nutritious seed into a potentially deadly sprout.

At least 2,000 species of plants contain cyanogenic
glycosides. These are chemicals that may produce HCN when the
plant cells are disrupted. Young sorghum (milo) plants are one of
these, and the cyanogenic glycoside in this plant is dhurrin.
According to the abstract at:

Biosynthesis of the Cyanogenic Glucoside Dhurrin in Seedlings of Sorghum bicolor (L.) Moench and Partial Purification of the Enzyme System Involved

"The seed and root contain neither dhurrin nor the
dhurrin-synthesizing enzyme system."

So, feeding the seeds is not a toxicity risk. However, the
germinated seeds very quickly produce levels of dhurrin that are
potentially lethal to birds. The above URL has a link to the full
paper, and on page 1556 Figure 5 (attached) indicates that when
the sprout is ~ 0.25" in length, the concentration of dhurrin is
high enough to produce ~21 micromol HCN/g of HCN (fresh weight).
That corresponds to about:

1000mg/g * 21e-6 mol HCN/g(fresh weight) * 27g HCN/mol = 0.57mg HCN/g(fresh
weight)

The LD50 dose of HCN for birds is ~10mg/kg[1], so half of a group
of 1000g birds will die after ingesting 10mg HCN (actually,
probably considerably more because the toxicities reported in the
reference below were determined with NaCN, and it's the CN ion
that is responsible for the toxicity. Thus the predicted LD50 for
HCN vs NaCN should be in the ratio of their molecular weights,
i.e., 27/49, so ~5mg HCN should be as toxic as 10 mg NaCN). This
NaCN LD50 would require ingesting ~ 18g of freshly sprouted
milo. This is less than 2% of the birds' body weight.

If I haven't blundered in the calculation, feeding freshly
sprouted milo is quite dangerous unless it's a very small part of
the sprout mix.

[1] _Journal of Wildlife Diseases_, 22(4), 1986, pp. 538-546
ACUTE ORAL TOXICITY OF SODIUM CYANIDE IN BIRDS
Stanley N. Wiemeyer, Elwood F. Hill, James W. Carpenter, and
Alexander J. Krynitsky
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Patuxent Wildlife Research Center,
Laurel, Maryland 20708, USA

 

[GG.]

this may be a little off on a tangent

but Milo is a frequent ingredient in wild bird mixes - do yall feel that it is ok to feed dry to the outdoor birds -

we have such a wet climate here and it is not uncommon for a small amount of the spilled seed to sprout

 

[Billie Faye]

Milo is a much bigger seed (if I remember correctly) and my birds wouldn't touch it! AND the birds outside won't eat it either...it is always left on the ground..
GREAT INFORMATION from BOTH of you!

 

[saroj12]

"Saroj is very, very correct on this one."
for a change
seriously though, the birds would be splashing water here and there and i thought it was too risky
China Prairie sprouting mixes had (may still have) milo and the owner said we have had no problems

 

[lotus15]

Great info Saroj... TOPs seed mixes used to contain milo but they were removed because they are NOT safe to sprout.

 

[CrashSmAshley]

I did not know this!!! Great info

 

[rockoko]

scary!

 

[Saemma]

Thanks for this info...

 

[Karen]

I did not know this!!! Great info

Same here. Thanks for posting this info.

ETA: I am waiting for an order to come in and I just checked the ingredients of the Merry Medley Seeds. Unhulled Milo/Sorghum is listed. Would you feed this?

Merry Medley Seeds: Unhulled Safflower, Inshell Black Striped Large Sunflower, Oat Groats, Unhulled Milo/Sorghum, Whole Hard Red Spring Wheat, Whole Spelt, Whole Quinoa, Whole Flax, Hulled Pumpkin Seeds, Unhulled Buckwheat Groats.

 

[Billie Faye]

I didn't take it that you can't feed it in your seed mixture...what the articles was saying was to "sprout" it causes the problems....Now if your birds throw seeds all over the place and they get wet and start sprouting....it could be a problem then...

 

[Merlie]

"Saroj is very, very correct on this one."
for a change
seriously though, the birds would be splashing water here and there and i thought it was too risky
China Prairie sprouting mixes had (may still have) milo and the owner said we have had no problems

I didn't mean that the way it sounded .. lol .. sorry, you are always correct on just about everything

I'm EXTREMELY surprised China Prairie uses milo <if they still do>, they have an excellent reputation for their sprout mixes.

I don't think there's any issue feeding is dry. Milo is used as a "filler" in a lot of wild bird <and domestic bird> seed blends. It's cheap, and readily available. My wild birds don't seem to eat it at all, it gets tossed to the ground for some reason.

I chose not to use any mixed for my birds that contain Milo .. it just bugs me that it could cause problems, so why risk it.

 

[saroj12]

I didn't mean that the way it sounded .. lol .. sorry, you are always correct on just about everything

I'm EXTREMELY surprised China Prairie uses milo <if they still do>, they have an excellent reputation for their sprout mixes.

I don't think there's any issue feeding is dry. Milo is used as a "filler" in a lot of wild bird <and domestic bird> seed blends. It's cheap, and readily available. My wild birds don't seem to eat it at all, it gets tossed to the ground for some reason.

I chose not to use any mixed for my birds that contain Milo .. it just bugs me that it could cause problems, so why risk it.

i don't see it now in their ingredients list . I hope i didn't make up the story

 

[saroj12]

I didn't mean that the way it sounded .. lol .. sorry, you are always correct on just about everything

you're the only one I've managed to fool then

 

[Gen120]

I did not know this!!! Great info

I didn't know it either! Thanks for the info!

 

[sl8tr]

"Saroj is very, very correct on this one."
for a change
seriously though, the birds would be splashing water here and there and i thought it was too risky
China Prairie sprouting mixes had (may still have) milo and the owner said we have had no problems

Holy cow and I ordered and have been feeding China Prairie sprouts to my babies

 

[saroj12]

Holy cow and I ordered and have been feeding China Prairie sprouts to my babies

I am WRONG Karen.....don't worry!!

They DO NOT have milo in their sprouting mix!

Sorry guys I misremembered

 

[Merlie]

Thanks for the update!!!