I’ve been a member of Food Bloggers of Canada for a couple of months now. I found out about FBC by reading a fellow Calgarian’s blog sometime after FBC had their first annual Bloggers Conference. I think there are many benefits to being a member. One of which is easy access to lists of fellow Canadian bloggers, all of who give a unique perspective of their part of this great country through food. I enjoy reading blogs from my home province of Saskatchewan as well as those delicious blogs from over East, especially when they feature seafood! I think being a member definitely has increased traffic to my blog as well and speaking as a relatively new blogger I really appreciate the traffic! One member benefit that I wasn’t expecting was the opportunity to win prizes and to try out food products and equipment.
After we got back from France, I was fairly busy but I did pop in to the FBC website and now I am super glad that I did. A.Vogel of Canada was looking for Food Bloggers to do a 10 Day BioSnacky Sprouter Challenge. I’ve been thinking for a while now that growing my own sprouts would be a great way to incorporate some healthy and delicious elements to my family’s diet. I had seen a similar system in a Foodie Store in Belgium but was unable to purchase it because it was all glass and we all know how that would have ended up in my check in baggage! To see this opportunity on the FBC website was serendipitous and I sent in my information email right away. I didn’t get confirmation until about a week later when I was halfway to Saskatchewan for my brother’s wedding. Believe me, the whole car knew how excited I was about starting my first product test.
The BioSnacky Kits consist of a 3-tier sprouter with organic sprouting seeds. It’s pretty simple because all you really need to add is water. The sprouts are basically the next step up from seeds and they are super healthy for you because they contain numerous vitamins such as Vitamin A, Vitamin C, Vitamin B1, Vitamin B6, and Vitamin K as well as lots of minerals like Phosphorous, Magnesium, Potassium, Manganese, and Calcium. As if these are not enough, sprouts also have dietary fiber, Folate, and Omega-3 fatty acids. Sprouting seeds, grains and legumes are found to have higher content of these nutrients. For instance, most beans increase in Vitamin A by eight times after being sprouted (info sourced from 3 Fat Chicks on a Diet).
The only sprouts I had growing up were alfalfa sprouts so I’m more interested in trying out the radish sprouts, broccoli sprouts (I hope they are better than broccoli) and especially the mung bean sprouts which are ‘bean sprouts’ as used in Asian cooking. I find it very difficult to find these fresh at the market so I’m really looking forward to growing my own.
The anticipation of waiting for my sprouter to arrive was almost too much to bear. I started to fear that I would get it the day before or even the day of the challenge and therefore be way behind in all the required posts and tweets. After not leaving the house for two days I finally had to get out and get some groceries and wouldn’t you know it? I came back to find a ‘missed delivery’ slip on my door. Good old Murphy and his laws…Anyway, I went later in the evening to pick it up from the postal outlet and took some pictures of the unboxing.
