Legumes - how do you prepare them?

[Nostromo]

Hello all,

For some reason, after 6 years of squinting skeptically at her veggie & fruit chop, my Pi has decided she loves it and gobbles it up every morning. Now that she's actually consuming more than a molecule or two at a time, I'm thinking about whether I'm offering her a well rounded selection. So far my chop recipes have always been a variation of a high Vit A veg (usually squash because she loves it and it binds the rest together), a dark leafy green, a fruit. Some variation of those plus or minus some ingredients depending on what I picked up at the store. I blend it and freeze it in ice cube trays to feed her one tray at the time. I feed the squash seeds with it, although they've been frozen so I have no idea what their nutritional content is.

I've been seeing a lot of chop recipes saying that legumes are needed for good birdological health. How tf do I prepare these? I don't know if I have the time to get into sprouting, what with monitoring for bacterial growth and having to keep them separate from the frozen batch etc. Is there a way I can have legumes added to the frozen chop? Can I feed canned beans if they've been well rinsed, or can I just soak the beans and feed them raw? Or do they need to be cooked?

Thank you!

 

[Zara]

If you don't want to sprout them, cook them Don't feed them raw.
Though sprouting really is quite easy with just a mason jar if you want to have a go.

 

[Nostromo]

@Zara Thanks! For sprouting, would it still work if they were frozen with the other chop? Or does that defeat the purpose? I like freezing a lot in advance and then daily prep is super easy. I'm afraid if I had to maintain the sprouts as another task it would end up meaning I'd be too busy some mornings to do it.

 

[Mizzely]

I have zero free time and can still sprout! It literally takes 30 seconds twice a day to get them ready. I have frozen chop and I just offer sprouts as they are ready several times a week.

Day 1 - Soak
Day 2+ - rinse and drain morning and night
Day 3-5 - depending on how much of a tail you want will depend on when they are ready. Rinse, drain, serve, stash the rest in the fridge for the next day(s). I usually do enough to last me about 3 days, so that the next batch is ready usually when the last one is done.

I wouldn't freeze them; simply because they are delicate and don't really freeze well in my experience.

If you truly don't want to deal with sprouting, I would cook them. You probably could use canned chickpeas if you really wanted to, though.

For what it's worth, I rarely give beans or lentils.

When you say blend it, do you mean like in a blender so its like a smoothie?

 

[caspin22]

I have a sprout routine similar to @Mizzely's. All of my birds LOVE sprouts, and I feed them every single day along with veggie chop and cooked chickpeas. I always have two sprouters going at once, plus sprouts in the fridge. It takes about 5 minutes in the morning, and 5 minutes in the evening to tend the sprouts. My birds all like the little plant part, so I grow them out longer than some others I've seen here.

I have two of the EasySprout sprouters from Sproutpeople.org. Their kits are great because they come with the sprouter plus 2lb of seed. My guys love the Lil Bird and the Mid Bird seed mixes best. Bird Seed Sprouting Kit I sprout 1/4 cup of dry seed at a time and that lasts me 3-4 days with my crazy flock. I store the sprouts in a half-zipped gallon ziplock bag in the fridge. If you get this sprouter, follow the directions on the website, NOT the ones that come with the sprouter.

I get close to 100% sprout rate with the sproutpeople mixes. I've tried the China Prairie mixes and don't get nearly the success rate with those, plus they tend to get slimy for some reason, where the sproutpeople mixes don't.

For legumes, I use these chickpeas: Palouse Chickpeas on Amazon If you have an InstantPot or any other pressure cooker, it's super easy. I measure out enough to cover the bottom of the InstantPot, rinse them, then pour them into the InstantPot. Add water until they are covered by about 3-4 inches, and pressure cook on high for 48 minutes, then manual pressure release. If you don't have a pressure cooker, you can boil them after soaking overnight, but it takes a lot longer. Once they're cooked, I cool them in the strainer, then put them into a big rubbermaid container, add water until they're covered, then in the fridge. If you store them in water, they will keep in the fridge for more than a week, if you change the water every few days. All of my birds love chickpeas. I plan to do something similar with a bean mix to see how they all like beans.

 

[Mizzely]

Mine also like the Lil Bird and Mid Bird mixes from Sprout People. I just got some of the China Prairie mixes to try out though.... Hopefully it's not a bust

 

[caspin22]

Mine also like the Lil Bird and Mid Bird mixes from Sprout People. I just got some of the China Prairie mixes to try out though.... Hopefully it's not a bust

I followed the exact same process with the China Prairie mix that I do with my sproutpeople mixes, and I found they went slimy and gross at the bottom of the sprouter before they barely even started sprouting. I'm really careful about draining ALL the water after a rinse, too, so it wasn't that. I tossed them, wasn't taking a chance. Please let me know if you have better results. Maybe I'll try again with the second variety I got.

 

[Mizzely]

I followed the exact same process with the China Prairie mix that I do with my sproutpeople mixes, and I found they went slimy and gross at the bottom of the sprouter before they barely even started sprouting. I'm really careful about draining ALL the water after a rinse, too, so it wasn't that. I tossed them, wasn't taking a chance. Please let me know if you have better results. Maybe I'll try again with the second variety I got.

Well that's a bummer!! Which one did you try?

I got the Thrive Soak and Serve, Micrograin, and Psittacine Sprout blends on the way.

 

[flwindsurf]

I sprout lentil seeds for C4. I always taste for freshness before they go into C4's daily fresh veggie dish. The pic is a quarter cup of lentil seeds sprouted. Reference: Sprouting or Germinating Seeds for Your Birds

 

[caspin22]

Well that's a bummer!! Which one did you try?

I got the Thrive Soak and Serve, Micrograin, and Psittacine Sprout blends on the way.

The China Prairie Psittacine mix is the one that went all slimy on me. I think it might be the starch in the rice...none of the Sproutpeople mixes have rice in them, I don't think. I also have a pack of the China Prairie Micrograins Mix that I haven't opened or tried yet. China Prairie sells the same EasySprout sprouter on their website that I use, so it's not that. I will give it another try.

 

[Nostromo]

@Mizzely Sorry for my late reply, for some reason I just got this notification. I decided to sprout some lentils! So far it's been, as promised, super easy It seems like a lot of people here sprout seeds. You buy those seed mixes online? Any reason not to buy raw seed from the grocery store?

For the blend, I don't blend it until smoothie-consistency, more like a coarse chop. But then I used cooked squash as a base so it becomes kind of a mush with little pieces in it. If I serve an actual chop she just picks through it to the seeds. But as a mush she accepts that some of the veggie will be inevitably swallowed as part of digging through for seeds, haha.

 

[Mizzely]

@Mizzely Sorry for my late reply, for some reason I just got this notification. I decided to sprout some lentils! So far it's been, as promised, super easy It seems like a lot of people here sprout seeds. You buy those seed mixes online? Any reason not to buy raw seed from the grocery store?

For the blend, I don't blend it until smoothie-consistency, more like a coarse chop. But then I used cooked squash as a base so it becomes kind of a mush with little pieces in it. If I serve an actual chop she just picks through it to the seeds. But as a mush she accepts that some of the veggie will be inevitably swallowed as part of digging through for seeds, haha.

I buy mixes because I don't have a good local source for a lot of the ingredients in the mixes I buy. One of my favorite mixes has 24 seeds, and the time, cost, and storage required to assemble that myself is just outside my capacity right now.

Lil Bird Sprout Mix

24 seeds for your small winged children. The seeds are listed in the About tab below.

sproutpeople.org

LIL BIRD MIX

SUNFLOWER (IN SHELL), WHEAT, SPELT (HULLED), TRITICALE,, OATS (HULLESS), MILLET, BUCKWHEAT (IN HULL), BROWN RICE, BLACK LENTILS, CRIMSON LENTILS, AND FRENCH BLUE LENTILS, ADZUKI BEANS, MUNG BEANS, FENUGREEK, FLAX, ALFALFA, RED CLOVER, ORIENTAL MUSTARD, 3 VARIETIES OF RADISH, QUINOA, SESAME, AMARANTH

 

[UwU alien]

Hello all,

For some reason, after 6 years of squinting skeptically at her veggie & fruit chop, my Pi has decided she loves it and gobbles it up every morning. Now that she's actually consuming more than a molecule or two at a time, I'm thinking about whether I'm offering her a well rounded selection. So far my chop recipes have always been a variation of a high Vit A veg (usually squash because she loves it and it binds the rest together), a dark leafy green, a fruit. Some variation of those plus or minus some ingredients depending on what I picked up at the store. I blend it and freeze it in ice cube trays to feed her one tray at the time. I feed the squash seeds with it, although they've been frozen so I have no idea what their nutritional content is.

I've been seeing a lot of chop recipes saying that legumes are needed for good birdological health. How tf do I prepare these? I don't know if I have the time to get into sprouting, what with monitoring for bacterial growth and having to keep them separate from the frozen batch etc. Is there a way I can have legumes added to the frozen chop? Can I feed canned beans if they've been well rinsed, or can I just soak the beans and feed them raw? Or do they need to be cooked?

Thank you!

My parents and I have always eaten cooked grains and legumes, as they said that they absolutely must be cooked even after sprouting