# If I sprout beans, am I creating free food? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 10, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103 "2009-11-10T21:55:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/1 "2009-11-10T21:55:53Z")
I’d like to try my hand at sprouting. I’m going to start with mung beans first. A growing plant adds mass to itself by converting atmospheric carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen into long and short-chain saccharides, which are incorporated into the plant’s leaves, trunk, flowers, fruit, etc. So if I have an orange tree in my yard, it is generating free food for me out of the Earth’s atmosphere. Does the same thing hold true if I sprout a bean? Or is the additional volume and mass simply air and water? I assume that if I let the sprouting process proceed to the _baby green stage_ where the first small leaves appear, then photosynthesis is occurring and I am indeed creating new mass. However, what if I eat them before this stage, as is usually done when sprouting mung beans? ---
**Author:** ![pan1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e495f1/32.png) [@pan1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pan1)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/2 "2009-11-10T22:04:02Z")
You have to take into account the cost of the soil, water, seeds and fertilizer. Not to mention the effort. The Air is free, the water may be. So, no its not free. Cost efficiency, however, may be achievable, depending mostly on scale. The stem/roots are also created, partially from the air and water. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/3 "2009-11-10T22:12:04Z")
OK, let me rephrase it because that’s not really what I was driving at. It’s a biochemistry question, not an economics question. Am I creating _new food_ if I sprout beans and arrest the process prior to the appearance of the first leaves? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/4 "2009-11-10T22:14:15Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > However, what if I eat them before this stage, as is usually done when sprouting mung beans? Your sprout has taken some of that boring old storage polysacharide from the seed and converted it into mung bean-sprouty-goodness: different sugars, proteins and fats than were present in the dry seed. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [November 10, 2009, 10:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/5 "2009-11-10T22:27:57Z")
So no new _additional saccharides_ have been formed at this point, then? It’s just been unfolded into a framework which contains air and water? ---
**Author:** ![twhitt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/87869e/32.png) [@twhitt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twhitt)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/6 "2009-11-11T02:16:36Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > So no new _additional saccharides_ have been formed at this point, then? It’s just been unfolded into a framework which contains air and water? That is primarily what has occurred, yes. However, if whatever you’re looking at is green, and has been in the presence of light, some of that light has been used to create new sugars. That’s pretty much unavoidable, and guaranteed. It’s probably a net loss, however, as some of the energy you would derive from an unsprouted bean will have been converted into cellulose and other undigestable material. I think this process is removing food calories from the bean more quickly than the first few hours worth of exposure to light may have added. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 2:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/7 "2009-11-11T02:44:14Z")
> [@pan1](#): > > You have to take into account the cost of the soil, water, seeds and fertilizer. Making “bean sprouts” does not require soil or fertilizer. It requires water. The sprout is using the nutrition stored in the seed to grow. Increase in mass would be predominantly water. Increase in volume is because the object is transforming from a relatively dense seed to a less dense sprout. Going past the sprout stage will require soil/plant food of some sort. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 6:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/8 "2009-11-11T06:35:25Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > So no new _additional saccharides_ have been formed at this point, then? It’s just been unfolded into a framework which contains air and water? I posted this reply earlier, but it seems to have fallen into the void… You’re basically right, though I think what you’re wanting to talk about is total chemical energy in the sprout. One thing that’s worth noting is that the majority of seeds contain quite a bit of fats, and have an enzyme that’s lacking in older plants to convert fats to carbohydrates (polysaccharides). Because fats have a much higher calorie density, the plant can increase in volume through this conversion, but it’s still decreasing in the total energy, since some is being lost through the conversion process. ---
**Author:** ![Washoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/ecae2f/32.png) [@Washoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Washoe)\ **Post date:** [November 11, 2009, 8:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/if-i-sprout-beans-am-i-creating-free-food/517103/9 "2009-11-11T08:09:56Z")
> [@dracoi](#): > > You’re basically right, though I think what you’re wanting to talk about is total chemical energy in the sprout. Right—maybe if I had phrased it that way to begin with, it would have avoided some confusion. My question does actually boil down to “which has more calories—a pound of mung beans, or the sprouts created from a pound of mung beans?” The answer would seem to be the mungs beans, since cellulose cannot be digested by animals.