Here's REAL Fast Food - From Plant To Plate In Five Seconds

As soon as food is harvested, it starts to lose its nutrients and vitamins.

An extreme example of this is corn on the cob, also known as sweet corn, where you are instructed to walk to the plant and then run to the cooking pot with the freshly cut cob, so fast does the vegetable degrade.

This degradation happens to all food to a greater or lesser degree. And, although freezing can suspend this process, there's no substitute for growing your own food and eating it the moment it is harvested, either raw or with minimal cooking to preserve all the health-giving vitamins and nutrients.

Maybe you find the prospect of actually growing your own food daunting. Or as the fall is now upon us, you feel this is not the right time of year to start digging. You may even live in an apartment with no garden.

None of this is a problem and here are some ideas to allow you the thrill of picking and eating your very own food crop.

Do you like Chinese food? Probably, because it's just about one of the most popular of the world cuisines. And one of the staples of Chinese food are bean sprouts. But do you known just how easy they are to grow? They take just four days to grow. What's more you'll be eating them seconds after you've harvested them and whilst they are still packed with vitamins minerals and valuable amino acids.

You'll find the seeds, which are called "Mung Beans", in most health food stores or even your local supermarket. You can use a glass jar with a piece of netting or muslin forming a lid. Or you can be very grand and get a sprouter for a few dollars, which will allow you to sprout several batches of seeds at different stages for a continuous supply - or simply a larger crop.

The sprouting kit (with beans soaking in tepid water)

You need to soak about two table spoons (per person) of seeds overnight in tepid water. Then simply spread the wet seeds evenly on the base of the sprouter (or pour them into the glass container and put the muslin "lid" on).

The beans ready to go

Then place them somewhere warm and dark. I grow mine in a closet with some hot water pipes nearby, which keeps it nicely warm.

All you need do for the next four days is rinse the seeds (still in their sprouter or glass jar) in tepid water, once a day.

The beans after two days

Then when you have your wok fired up, give them a final rinse and, once the other ingredients are nearly cooked, pour the sprouted seeds into the wok, and stir fry for about another minute - then serve.

The beans ready for cooking

It's the thought of a delicious Chinese stir fry that evening that gets me out of bed on a Monday morning!

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