Not a link, but a couple of suggestions that might keep you and yours alive on the cheap if the big ugly lands in our collective front yard.
First, if you haven't already done so, get yourself a one troy ounce ".999 silver round", three nine volt alkaline batteries (or more than three, in multiples of three), some wire, a battery clip, two alligator clips, some rosin-core solder, a funnel, some coffee filters, and a lot of distilled water.
Cut the silver round in half. Cut the wire in half. Cut the battery clip in half. Solder one end of each wire to an alligator clip, and solder the other to a terminal on the battery clip.
Rig up a holder out of toothpicks, popsicle sticks, plastic, twigs, or whatever non-conductive materials you have available.
Put the tip of each half-round into the tip of the alligator clips. (One half-round per clip.)
Suspend them in a glass or jar of distilled water. Make
sure that
only the silver touches the water. You do
not want
any non-silver metal touching the water! I cannot overemphasize this enough.
Next, connect the three batteries to each other. Snap the male of one battery into the female of the next, and then repeat, until you have the three batteries snapped together, with one empty terminal at each end of the stack. Snap the battery clip halves onto the matching battery terminal.
Wait 15 minutes or so. You should see some sludgy/scummy stuff.
Taste it. It should taste kinda yucky, reminiscent of old dishwater.
If it has the sludgy stuff and tastes kinda foul, it's done.
Put the filter in the funnel, put the funnel into an empty glass or jar, and pour the liquid through the filter.
When you are done, you will have a nice mess of colloidal silver, at a cost of probably less than a penny a gallon. Cost of one ounce silver round -- a lifetime supply -- maybe five bucks. Cost of three batteries (on ebay or some other discountish venue), maybe 3 bucks. The batteries will probably last for years, because you're not drawing much more than leakage current from them.
What you do with the CS is up to you, I am not going to give out medical advice.
Second suggestion: hie thee to thy bean repository, and do vitality tests on each batch of dry beans in your possession. Do the same for any whole grains you've got on hand.
If you get good results (if most of the seeds germinate within a few days and grow robust sprouts), and if you've got enough of them, then you're set. If you don't get good results, go buy more beans and grains -- and test each lot's vitality before committing to buying a large quantity from that batch.
The seeds that won't give acceptable germination results should be reserved for standard applications (grinding/cooking). The ones that
do sprout nicely should be used for sprouting.
Sprouted legumes and grains are like eating fresh vegetables, only better. They have
much higher nutrient levels than just about anything else on earth, and you can "farm" them year round in any environment.
You don't need anything fancy to grow sprouts. Mason jars (or
any jars), with the lids replaced by window screen (
clean screen,
please!), or even squares cut from pantyhose.
Pick through them (remove rocks, bugs, obviously "bad" seeds that are split or broken or bug-eaten), then rinse and drain. Then soak overnight. The next morning, drain. Make sure you leave plenty of room for expansion when putting the dry beans into the jars.
Then, rinse and drain several times a day. How many times is not critical, and I don't think you can overdo it, but even once or twice a day will probably suffice.
Do
not keep them in the dark! (And don't keep them in the fridge either!)
You don't want to have the bloated, blanched, waterlogged "store bought" variety of tasteless/nutrient-free sprouts. You want to have sprouts that are smaller, chewier, tastier, and
green! When light hits them, photosynthesis will enable their vitamin and enzyme factories to kick into gear, and that's what you want.
It should go without saying that if you're thinking "ugh, beansprouts!" on the basis of an experience with the garbage found in cans and the vegetable aisle of the grocery store, you are in for a major shock. Those worthless sprouts are grown in a reduced atmosphere pressure, in the dark, to produce
large, waterlogged, blanched sprouts of "commercial quality". They are to the kind of sprouts we're growing as whitebread is to "the staff of life".
Grains are a little different. When you're sprouting grains, do
not let them grow much longer than the seed itself, or they'll turn into a stringy, tasteless mass that is nigh impossible to eat.
Another thing about grain sprouts (at least wheat, which is the only one I've tried this with) -- if you take them (once sprouted) and put them in the fridge (this will stop the sprouting process with beans or grains, and let you keep them for several days instead of having them grow past their prime), and then
leave them there for a few days, they will produce a sweet flavor not unlike sweetcorn!
It's a
very nice treat! (And one that's good for ya!)
You can also serve sprouts to your livestock. I've read that livestock really thrive on them. (I think the studies I read of were on poultry and cattle, and I can't recall where I read them, maybe someone else has a link.) As I remember it, the livestock grew faster and healthier on less feed when the feed was sprouted instead of being given to them dry.
I haven't tried this yet but I fully intend to do so for our poultry and goats.
I've worked up the design for an el-cheap "bulk sprouter" in my mind and plan on "building" one shortly. Take two 5 gallon plastic buckets. Clean them. Drill lots of holes in the bottom of
one bucket. Cut a round piece of clean windowscreen the size of the bottom of the bucket, and place it into the bucket with the holes.
Put your dry seeds into the bucket with the screen. Fill the other bucket with water. Nestle the bucket with the seeds into the bucket with the water, and cover it with a piece of screen to allow air to ventilate but keep bugs out.
Soak overnight, then lift the seed bucket out of the water bucket, empty the water bucket, and then put the seed bucket into the water bucket. You could also use a shortcut -- remove the seed bucket from the water bucket, let it drain, and then several times a day dip it into the water bucket for maybe 30 seconds, then remove it and let it drain. You might want to cut some notches through the "ring" at the bottom of the seed bucket to allow water that drains from the bottom to escape instead of pooling up (and possibly molding).
Enjoy!
(Edited to add that you should REMOVE the wires from the batteries when you are not actually making the CS! If they short out, they
might cause enough heat to start a fire, or leak their contents, or, as happened to us before my wife knew not to leave them connected
, they will
definitely kill the batteries in short order!)
(Edited
again to add that the reason I said to get three batteries or more than three in
multiples of three was so that you'd have spares, and
not that you should connect
more than three at any time! Do NOT connect MORE than three batteries together!)
(Edited one final time to add a half-suggestion): You can make "wheat grass" by "planting" wheat in a flower pot, a roasting pan, or anything else you've got handy. Fill it with good soil (pre-moistened if it's dry), then sprinkle a liberal amount of wheat on top. There should be enough seeds so that they're nearly touching. If some do touch, that's OK, it's not critical.
Press the wheat into the dirt, and then put an eighth inch or so of dirt on top of the seeds (depth not super critical), and press down.
Water frequently enough to prevent it from drying out.
Inside of a few days you'll have blades of wheat grass growing. It will remain tender until it's fairly tall, maybe 6 or 8 inches. If you have cats, they will
love "grazing" on it. So much, in fact, that if you want to keep any for yourself, you'll have to keep it where your cats can't get near it. It's good for them too, and they won't puke it up like they do when they eat lawn grass.
If you have a wheat grass juicer, you can make wheat grass juice. If not, you can just cut it with a scissors eat it like a fresh vegetable. It's very nutritious.
)