Journal

Preference has been measured on 233 consumers across three panels. Bull's Blood beet topped the only 0-to-100 ranking, pea shoots and Swiss chard led the other two, and milder crops won throughout.

Federal law makes a seed packet state its kind and variety, not its species. One catalog's four kale microgreen listings span two different species and $25.73 to $84.25 a pound.

Herb-family crops take a median 19 days against 11.5 for everything else, and 8 of the 9 hardest crops are herbs. They also sow lighter, so the premium is bench time, not seed.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A young edible seedling, grown densely and cut above its medium at about the first true leaf, usually 1.5 to 3 inches and 7 to 21 days. That cut is what separates it from a sprout.

Nearly every beginner list names radish, pea and sunflower. Pea and sunflower are the only two of that set not rated beginner: both carry high mold risk, both need a soak, and both sow at six times the median seed rate.