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If you are experiencing challenges with growing your sprouts, email us at service@sproutman.com. We generally do not accept returns of opened bags of seeds but, in the rare instance that there is a germination issue, we will work with you to make it right.

First, please review our Returns + Refunds Policy to confirm your item is eligible for return. To make a return, please email us at service@sproutman.com.

We mostly ship within the US, but we would be happy to put together a custom shipping quote for you. Contact us and let us know what you’re interested in purchasing and where you’d like to ship it to.

If it’s your first time sprouting, that’s fantastic! To help you get started, we’ve put together a free sprouting guide for you, which you can download here! It covers everything you need to know to get started and successfully grow your first batch of sprouts.

We’d love to see your first harvest! Please share them with us on Facebook or Instagram by tagging us @sproutman. Be sproutful!

We recommend rinsing your sprouts with the same water you drink. If you don't drink your tap water, don’t use it to water your sprouts. Otherwise, sprouts aren’t too picky!

Here’s a handy chart you can consult. You can also consult the back of your seed bag or the product page. Chart here If you have more sprouting questions, you can download our free sprouting guide here!

Good news! Sprouts don’t need any sunlight to grow. As young plants, they do not have the leaf structure to photosynthesize, so they have no need for sunlight. In fact, each seed contains all the nutrients a sprout needs to thrive in the first two weeks—that’s why sprouts are so nutritious!

So it doesn’t matter if your kitchen is sunny or not. Simply set up your sprouts in a place where they can drain properly that has unobstructed airflow and is a relatively consistent room temperature. We like to hang our Sprout Bags on cabinet knobs above the sink or above a bowl. Or we store our bags and inverted sprouting jars on a bamboo dish rack next to the sink for easy watering.

Sprouts and microgreens are not different plants—they are two consecutive stages in a plant's life.

The sprout stage is the youngest stage of growth for a plant, from day 0 to day 10. These tasty baby plants contain all the nutrients they need to grow, but are not developed enough to need soil or sunlight. That is why sprouts are easily grown in dark corners of your kitchen in jars or hemp bags. Once they’re ready, they can be eaten whole—roots and all!

After 10 days or so, that sprout has grown so much that it starts needing additional nourishment. It needs soil. It needs sunlight. It needs to stretch its roots a little. That’s when it becomes a microgreen. Microgreens have developed leaves, must usually be grown in soil (or another growing medium), and are generally trimmed from their roots before they’re eaten. It’s important to note that microgreens cannot be grown in a bag or a jar. Instead, they prefer a tray-style sprouter (like the Turio or Freshlife).

Sprouts are one of nature’s most powerful foods—packed with bioavailable and easy-to-digest vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, plant proteins, and enzymes. They are a superfood that anyone can easily (and affordably) grow in their own kitchens!

It is as simple as taking 30 seconds to water your sprouts 2x a day. In 5-7 days, you’ll have a big batch of happy, healthy supergreens to harvest!

We recommend starting with our Starter Kit. It comes with 2 Sprout Bags and a trio of beginner-friendly sprouting seeds: Mung Beans, Power Protein, and Salad Mix. Other beginner-friendly seeds include Alfalfa, Crunch Time, and Red Clover—or try our Beginner's Half Dozen bundle of seeds.

While it is possible that your sprouts may be molding, it’s more likely that you are noticing your sprout’s fine white root hairs. In the first few days of growth, some sprouts (especially broccoli, radish, mustard, and sunflower) will grow root hairs to help absorb more moisture (because they’re thirsty!). Simply give your sprouts a good and thorough watering and they should disappear.

Here are a few ways to tell the difference between mold and root hairs:
• Root hairs form around day 2 or 3 of sprouting. They are thin, fine, and white, and they tend to thicken as the sprout matures.
• Root hairs only grow on the roots—never on the stem or leaves. They also break easily.
• When in doubt, do the sniff test. When a sprout has root hairs, it smells like a healthy plant. If it is mold, your sprouts will smell rotten or like wet soil—they won’t smell good to eat at all!

Moldy sprouts are usually the result of old, low quality, or non-sprouting specific seeds. We are proud to offer the highest quality, triple tested sprouting seeds—meaning mold as a result of bad seeds is incredibly rare. If you’ve done everything right (used quality sprouting seeds, have good airflow, rinsed 2x daily with fresh cool water, and have a clean grower), that fuzz you’re noticing on day 3 of growing is likely root hairs.

If you need more help, feel free to send us an email and we’re happy to assist! 

You don’t have to, but you can if you want. If you prefer to sanitize your seeds out of an abundance of caution, you can use a small amount of hydrogen peroxide during your seed’s initial overnight soak. We suggest using a tablespoon of 8% food grade hydrogen peroxide. Some of the beneficial enzymes are destroyed in this process, but your sprouts are still chock full of good stuff that your body will love!

There’s no cause for concern. Little purple-ish dots on your beans are the result of mineral staining—the minerals in your tap water staining the seed jackets. To combat this, try adding a dash of 8% food grade hydrogen peroxide or grapefruit seed extract to your water. It will help to neutralize the effects of the minerals so that your sprouts always look clean and healthy.

Sprouts are one of nature’s most powerful foods—packed with bioavailable and easy-to-digest vitamins, minerals, antioxidants, amino acids, plant proteins, and enzymes. But what makes sprouts particularly unique is just how bioavailable and concentrated these nutrients are. For example, sprouts can have up to 40x more nutrients, gram for gram, than their full grown veggie counterparts! They’re like nature’s multivitamin. To learn more about the health benefits of specific sprouts, check out our Benefits page and read Sprouts: The Miracle Food by Steve Meyerowitz.

The options are endless! You can eat your sprouts raw—tossed in a salad, on a sandwich, over pizza, or in a smoothie. Or you can lightly cook them into stir-fries, soups, sauces, and sautées. (Be aware that any amount of cooking will degrade their nutrition slightly, so always add them in at the end and cook your sprouts as lightly as possible.) Head over to our blog for some sproutful recipes ideas!

We recommend storing your harvested sprouts in the refrigerator. An airtight container is ideal, but certain sprouts do well when simply stored in a sprouting jar or the Sprout Bag. Just make sure that your sprouts are well drained before refrigerating. They should last for about a week, but excess water could encourage them to go bad more quickly.

We recommend storing your harvested sprouts in the refrigerator in an airtight container. The cold drastically slows down their growth, so they should keep for about 7-10 days this way. That said, it is helpful to take them out of the fridge every 2-3 days and give them a little rinse-and-drain so they stay vibrant and fresh.

As long as they are stored in a dark, cool, and dry space, seeds can last for years and still be viable for sprouting! You may see a slightly lower germination rate over time but you'll still be able to harvest a big batch of healthy sprouts. Here’s the shelf life you can expect for each of our seeds:

If you have more sprouting questions, you can download our free sprouting guide here!

Here’s a handy chart you can consult. You can also consult the back of your seed bag or the product page.

If you have more sprouting questions, you can download our free sprouting guide here!

How many batches you can harvest from each bag depends on how many sprouts you're adding to your diet. It's different for each person. Generally, a small 16 ounce bag of Salad Mix will grow into about 4-5 pounds of fresh sprouts!

It depends entirely on the seed variety. Our Salad Mix generally yields about 5 oz. of fresh sprouts per tablespoon of seeds. (That’s about how much you’ll find in the plastic clamshell packaging at your grocery store.) This ratio is generally accurate for most green leafy sprouts—including broccoli, radish, alfalfa, etc. Sprouted beans, on the other hand, will generally produce about half of that.

The beauty of sprouted beans is that they are significantly more digestible than their unsprouted counterparts, even when raw! So, no, you do not have to cook sprouted beans.

The whole sprout, including the seed, is edible. To avoid some of the bitter taste, just be sure to give them a thorough rinse when you harvest your sprouts to get as much of the hull of the seeds away. That may be what is causing the excessive bitterness. You can also experiment with different growing times to see when you like the flavor best. Just give them a taste test each time you rinse them. Our recommended 5-7 days is just a suggestion, some people enjoy the taste of their sprouts better after 3 days and some after 8 days! You could let them grow for a day or two more so they become more like shoots than sprouts or harvest them on day 3 instead. Additionally, adding them to a stir fry or slow-roasting them with some oil and salt should release a bit more of the seed's sweetness.

To clean your Sprout Bag, you just need to turn it inside out and give it a rinse in warm water. You can use a sponge with no soap to remove any stuck particles. Then, let it drip dry.

For a deeper clean (which we recommend every 5 uses or so), place the Sprout Bag in boiling water and boil it for 5 minutes!

Do not stick the bag in the laundry machine or use soap/detergents, as this decreases the lifespan of your bag. 

Both methods work great for sprouting! We recommend the Sprout Bag in more humid climates, as it is designed to allow maximum airflow and drainage. The bag is also made from naturally antimicrobial and mold-resistant hemp, which is ideal for warm summer weather.

We recommend the sprouting jar for cooler, drier climates, as it maintains a slightly more humid environment that prevents the seeds from drying out. That said, the jar does need to be inverted in such a way as to allow for excess water to completely drain out and encourage airflow.

But that’s us getting really technical. Nine out of ten times, both the jar and the bag are equally great choices and will both grow happy, healthy sprouts. It’s generally just a matter of what you enjoy using more.

Not to worry! As the sprouts grow, the seed hulls will fall away and end up at the bottom of your bag. Because the hemp bag is a natural material, the pigment from the seed hull will often leave marks and imperfections that look like black spots. This is just an imprint from a seed hull and very normal. Feel free to boil your bag to give it a deep cleaning.

Sunflower sprouts are actually more of a "microgreen", meaning they must be grown on a tray so they can grow vertically. The Sprout Bag (or a jar) won't allow for vertical growth. Instead, they'll jumble together into a massive tangle––not ideal. A grower like our Freshlife 3000 or the Turio Sprouting Tower works well for sunflower, wheatgrass*, and pea shoots. You can grow most other varieties in these as well.

*We only recommend growing wheatgrass in the Freshlife or in a larger tray-style grower. The Turio does not produce enough yield for juicing.

Our sprouting lids are 100% stainless steel, so they should not rust. What often happens is a natural pigment from the sprout hulls will start to build up on the lid, giving the appearance of rust. Simply using a scouring pad to scrub the lid should clean it right off.

It is recommended that you change the water in your Freshlife 3000 every day to ensure freshness. There should be a fill line in the basin indicating how much water to add.

The white foam is nothing to worry about. It is the saponins released by the seeds as they grow—similar to the foam you find when you’re cooking a pot of beans from scratch.

Depending on your juicer, you can usually get between 10-12 ounces of fresh juice out of a pound of freshly harvested wheatgrass. (The average shot size is 1-2 oz.)

Freshly harvested wheatgrass usually stays fresh (when stored in an airtight bag in the fridge) for about 3-5 days. We suggest juicing yours within a week of receiving or harvesting it.

Unless immediately frozen, fresh wheatgrass juice cannot be stored in the fridge without losing its nutritional potency.

When you go to health institutes, they will generally give you 2-4 oz. of wheatgrass a day. We recommend you start with 2 oz. shot a day (or 6 Wheatgrass Juice Capsules) and see how you feel from there. We do not recommend consuming over 10 oz a day.

All sprouts are incredibly healthy! That said, there is more documented research on broccoli than any other sprout. Broccoli sprouts boast a high glucosinolate content, a compound which converts into sulforaphane upon digestion. They’re incredibly dense in antioxidants, nutrients, and beneficial enzymes—acting as a powerful plant nutraceutical that helps to protect your brain and heart while supporting cellular detoxification.

But other sprouts come with big benefits, too! To learn more, check out Steve Meyerowitz’s classic book, Sprouts: The Miracle Food.

If farm-to-table dining is good, kitchen-to-table is better. Unlike the produce at your local supermarket, eating more sprouts will shrink your carbon footprint. Sprouting seeds take up much less space in transport; require no soil, fertilizer, or pesticides; and don’t need wasteful refrigeration. And unlike store-bought veggies, they’re still very much alive when they get to your plate.

Additionally, when you support the sprouting seed industry, you are encouraging farmers to grow and harvest organic sprouting seeds that help regenerate the land and replenish depleted soil. It’s simple supply and demand, but with powerful environmental outcomes.

We take testing very seriously, which is why all of our organic sprouting seeds are triple lab tested. We first test for the standard pathogen spread (Listeria, Salmonella, E. coli, etc.) and then separately test for high germination rates. On the journey from the farm to our hands, our seeds are meticulously tested to ensure quality and purity at every touch point.

Yes, our seeds are (and always will be) organic and non-GMO!

All of our organic sprouting seeds are mindfully sourced from the USA or Canada, with a few exceptions:
• Mung Bean is sourced from China.
• Fenugreek is sourced from India.
• Alfalfa + Radish are sometimes sourced from Italy.

Every new batch of the seeds is triple tested—including third party lab testing—to ensure the utmost purity and quality. Ari and Noah also personally test grow each batch to make sure they’ve earned the Sproutman seal of approval.

The short answer is no. Sprouts are a safe and incredibly healthy plant food. As with any variety of fresh produce, there is always a very small risk of pathogen contamination (but that doesn’t stop you from eating lettuce, does it?). As long as you care for your sprouts properly, the risk of illness is negligible. That said, if you are concerned, always consult with your doctor first.

 Here’s what the Sproutman himself had to say when asked this question:“In a given year, getting hit by lightning (1.29 people per million) is more likely than contracting E. Coli (1.1 people per million) from meat, poultry, shellfish, milk, eggs and produce combined. Since produce represents the smallest risk of these foods (41 outbreaks in 5 years) and since sprouts represent an even smaller risk than produce (12 in 40 years), the benefits of eating sprouts dramatically, statistically and historically outweigh the contamination risks.” –Steve Meyerowitz