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Microgreens Guru

The journal

Journal

Is the 40-times claim true, are they safe to eat raw, will they help your blood sugar, how long do they keep. The questions people actually ask about microgreens, answered from the research and dated.

The health series

Twelve articles on what microgreens have and have not been shown to do, each naming the material actually tested: microgreen, sprout, extract or mature vegetable. Read in order or start anywhere.

  1. A 1020 tray of dense ten day old green broccoli microgreens on a working laboratory bench in flat daylight, beside a plain unopened sample collection kit box and a printed chart lying at a shallow angle with its type too fine to read, photographed level with the bench

    Part 1 of 12

    Microgreens and Gut Health: What One Small Study Actually Found

    Eleven people, one serving, and the researchers looked at chemistry rather than symptoms. The bowel study everyone quotes used sprouts, was paid for by a farm, and one good bacteria went down.

  2. A working laboratory bench in flat daylight holding a clear punnet of deep purple red cabbage microgreens beside a rack of empty capped glass sample tubes and a printed chart lying at a shallow angle, its type and plotted lines too fine to read, photographed level with the bench

    Part 2 of 12

    Are Microgreens Anti-Inflammatory? What the Research Really Says

    Nobody has fed a person microgreens and measured their inflammation. And when researchers pooled ten broccoli sprout trials, the combined result came out at something that could be zero.

  3. A blood pressure cuff and a small dish of cut green microgreens side by side on a plain kitchen counter, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 3 of 12

    Microgreens and Heart Health: What Has Been Tested in People, and What Has Not

    No completed human trial has measured blood pressure or cholesterol after anyone ate a microgreen. The cholesterol result circulating everywhere is an 8-week mouse study, and the nitrate case cannot even be costed.

  4. A kitchen worktop in flat daylight holding a small tray of fresh green broccoli microgreens beside a compact handheld glucose meter with its screen dark and unlit, and a printed page lying at a shallow angle with its type too fine to read, photographed level with the surface

    Part 4 of 12

    Microgreens and Diabetes: What Is Known About Blood Sugar

    Microgreens fit a diabetes plate like any non-starchy vegetable. Whether they lower blood sugar has never been tested: every human trial used broccoli sprout powder or extract, not the fresh greens.

  5. A kitchen scale on a worktop in flat daylight holding a small pile of fresh microgreens beside a plated salad, photographed level with the surface

    Part 5 of 12

    Do Microgreens Help You Lose Weight? Two Claims, One Answer

    One of these claims is probably true and has nothing to do with microgreens. The other was tested by injecting a compound into mice. Here is which is which.

  6. A small dish of cut green microgreens on a kitchen counter beside a plain drinking glass, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 6 of 12

    Microgreens and Immunity: What the Nutrients Actually Do, and What Has Not Been Tested

    Supports the immune system is a regulatory category, not a finding. No human trial has measured infections after anyone ate a microgreen, and a realistic serving supplies about 1 percent of a day's zinc.

  7. A small bowl of cut green microgreens on a kitchen counter beside a weekly pill organizer, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 7 of 12

    Microgreens and Bone Health: The Nutrient Is Real, and Nobody Mentions Warfarin

    Vitamin K1 is the one nutrient microgreens genuinely deliver, at up to 137 percent of a day's intake in a handful. Five pages making the bone claim were checked and none mentioned the drug it interacts with.

  8. A small bowl of cut green microgreens beside a wedge of lemon on a kitchen counter, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 8 of 12

    Microgreens and Iron: You Would Need Eleven Trays a Day

    A 30 g portion supplies under 1.5 percent of a woman's iron. One half cup of cooked spinach beats two whole trays. And the oxalate story everyone repeats failed its human test.

  9. A tray of dense green broccoli microgreens on a laboratory bench beside a rack of empty glass vials, photographed level with the bench in flat daylight

    Part 9 of 12

    Microgreens and Cancer: The Compound Everyone Names Is the One Broccoli Microgreens Have Least Of

    Every cancer claim runs on sulforaphane, which comes from glucoraphanin. Broccoli microgreens carry twenty times more glucoerucin than glucoraphanin, and no human microgreen cancer outcome study exists.

  10. A small glass of wheatgrass juice on a kitchen counter beside a tray of growing wheatgrass, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 10 of 12

    Microgreens for Skin, Hair and Detox: What the Evidence Shows

    The wheatgrass detox claim traces to one person in 1955, not to a study. There are five human wheatgrass trials, they are about colitis and thalassemia, and the two largest were negative.

  11. A small white plate on a kitchen counter holding a garnish sized pile of cut green broccoli microgreens, standing next to a flat digital kitchen scale turned so its display faces away from the camera, photographed level with the counter in flat daylight

    Part 11 of 12

    Microgreens and the Thyroid: How Much Would You Actually Have to Eat?

    The one human dose threshold is 194 micromoles of goitrin. Reaching it takes about 110 g of a high-progoitrin kale or 1.94 kg of commercial broccoli, which is about 7 garnishes against 129.

  12. Three unlabeled punnets of different cut microgreens on a market table, photographed level with the table in flat daylight

    Part 12 of 12

    Microgreens and Allergies: Four Crops Are Regulated Allergens

    Sesame, mustard, buckwheat and celery are all grown as microgreens and all carry allergen labeling law somewhere. And not one published case report names a cut microgreen as the food eaten.

The eating series

What to buy, what it costs, how much to eat and who should be careful. The practical end of the subject, for people who are eating microgreens rather than growing them.

  1. Three sealed clear clamshells of microgreens of noticeably different sizes standing side by side on a refrigerated supermarket shelf, the greens visible through the lids and a plain shelf edge below them, photographed square on at shelf height in flat store light

    Part 1 of 5

    Buying Microgreens: The Same $6 Buys 60 Grams or 100

    Across every observed price, what a shopper can actually pay spans 2-fold while sellers quote across 8.3. Farm-direct covers almost the whole range by itself, because pack size decides the price and the channel does not.

  2. A single small clear clamshell of microgreens standing on a bench beside a stack of empty flat-packed clamshells and a roll of blank adhesive labels, with a full 1020 tray of uncut greens behind them, photographed side on at bench height in flat indoor light

    Part 2 of 5

    Why Microgreens Are Expensive: You Are Mostly Buying the Box

    In the only full published tray budget, labels, packaging and marketing are 51 to 60 percent of what a tray costs to produce. Growing the plant is 16 to 20 percent, and the seed is under 10.

  3. A small kitchen bowl holding a loose two-cup heap of mixed red and green microgreens beside a dinner plate carrying a sparse pinch of the same greens as a garnish, the two amounts side by side for comparison, photographed at table height in flat daylight

    Part 3 of 5

    How Much Microgreens a Day? A Serving and a Dose Differ by Twelve Times

    No regulator anywhere sets a daily microgreen intake. The only weighed serving published is 2.5 grams; the only daily-feeding trials used 28 to 30. Nobody has reconciled those two numbers.

  4. A small glass of dense green juice standing beside a masticating juicer on a kitchen bench, with a heap of cut wheatgrass on one side and a mound of pale spent pulp on the other, photographed side on at bench height in flat daylight

    Part 4 of 5

    Juicing Microgreens: One Glass Is Three Quarters of a Tray

    Nobody has measured how much juice a microgreen tray gives. The one published figure is a seller's, for wheatgrass, on a tray 23 percent larger than a 1020. Rescaled, a 240 mL glass is three quarters of a tray.

  5. A small bowl of soft cooked vegetable puree with finely minced green microgreens stirred through it, set on a high chair tray beside a short-handled weaning spoon, photographed from above in flat daylight

    Part 5 of 5

    Microgreens for Babies and Children: Cook Them First, and Here Is Why

    Cooking is the step that addresses the pathogen risk for under-fives, and it is the one thing you can act on. No pediatric or federal body sets a starting age, so here is exactly what is established.

The comparison series

Microgreens against the things they get confused with, and against each other. Every comparison names what was actually measured rather than repeating the claim that made it popular.

  1. A mesh lidded glass jar tipped on its side spilling pale alfalfa sprouts with tangled white roots and clinging seed coats, beside a shallow tray of broccoli microgreens showing bare cut stems, both on a worn kitchen counter photographed side on in flat daylight

    Part 1 of 7

    Microgreens vs Sprouts: The Difference Is a Cut, Not a Nutrient, and It Decides Which Federal Rule Applies

    A sprout is eaten whole, a microgreen is cut above its roots, and that cut decides whether FDA's sprout rule applies. The nutrition claim used to rank them was measured on mature vegetables.

  2. Three shallow trays of the same lettuce variety side by side on a worn potting bench, the first a dense low stand of cotyledon stage seedlings, the second taller with several true leaves, the third a widely spaced row of loose open heads, photographed side on at bench height in flat daylight

    Part 2 of 7

    Microgreens vs Baby Greens: Same Seed, Same Tray, and the Only Difference Is When You Cut

    These are harvest stages of one plant, not three foods. USDA and Maryland disagree on where microgreens end, 17 of 61 crops with a published harvest window break the day counts, and the yield result everyone cites is a density experiment.

  3. A shallow tray of harvested broccoli microgreens on a stainless bench beside a colonized sawdust block fruiting a cluster of gray oyster mushrooms, photographed side on at bench height in flat light, the block surface uneven and the bench visibly scratched and stained

    Part 3 of 7

    Microgreens vs Mushrooms: On Labor Per Pound the Two Overlap, and the Farm-to-Farm Spread Is 10.9-Fold

    Put both crops on labor hours per pound and they land on top of each other. The variation between mushroom farms is 10.9-fold, which is larger than any gap between the crops, so the operator decides this and not the crop.

  4. Six shallow trays of different microgreen crops lined up along a worn potting bench, deep purple red cabbage, feathery green cilantro, red veined sorrel, crimson amaranth, pale green daikon radish and tall pea, each a distinct color and canopy height, photographed side on at bench height in flat daylight

    Part 4 of 7

    The Healthiest Microgreens: Which Are Most Nutritious, and Why the Ranking Collapses

    Red cabbage leads vitamin C, red sorrel beta-carotene, cilantro the other carotenoids and green daikon radish vitamin E, all in one study. Converted to a real serving, first and third are 15 micrograms apart.

  5. A home-grown 1020 tray of microgreens on a kitchen counter next to a shop-bought clamshell of the same crop, the tray canopy uneven and the clamshell contents level and uniform, photographed side on at counter height in flat daylight

    Part 5 of 7

    Grow or Buy Microgreens? The Answer Is an Hourly Rate, and It Is $23.60

    Seed alone makes home growing look eleven times cheaper. Add medium, power, a failure rate and your own time at $20 an hour and the saving against the cheapest retail is 8 percent.

  6. A small boxed microgreen starter kit with its shallow tray and seed packets laid out on a counter, beside a full-size 1020 tray, a bag of coir and a jar of loose seed representing the do-it-yourself equivalent, photographed side on at counter height in flat daylight

    Part 6 of 7

    Microgreen Grow Kits Against DIY: The Cheapest Kit Is the Most Expensive

    Priced per unit of growing area, the ranking inverts: the $60 kit is the cheapest and the $20 kit is nearly the dearest. Against assembling it yourself, the sample runs 6 to 40 times.

  7. A small open jar of fine dark green powder with a measuring scoop resting beside it on a bench, next to a loose handful of the same crop still fresh and uncut, photographed side on at bench height in flat daylight

    Part 7 of 7

    Microgreen Powder Against Fresh: What You Gain, What You Lose, and What Nobody Can Tell You

    Sellers claim 80, 85, 95 percent or negligible loss. In the one broccoli study, retention ran from 4.42 percent for chlorophyll to 97.86 for potassium, a 22-fold spread. One number cannot describe that.

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