IF YOU'VE SPENT any time boning up on parrot nutrition, you've probably heard about the wonders of sprouting your own seeds. Sprouts are touted as one of the best things you can feed your bird. In general, this is true. However, it might surprise you to learn that sprouts also can introduce health problems - and that there's an even better way to feed seeds.

The trouble with sprouts
A few years ago, when they had just started to advertise in the bird magazines, I bought my very first sprout kit with all the bells and whistles from China Prairie. With my background in nutrition, I knew that sprouts would be a wonderful addition to our birds' diet, and I started my first batches with zeal.

The China Prairie kit included three mason jars with screened lids, and a tower in which to place each jar at a tilt - this was to make sure the moisture ran off and there was good air circulation. The kit also came with a couple of different packages of seeds, one for general feeding and a second "micrograin" formula for smaller parrots.

So that you always had sprouts ready for feeding, the kit suggested starting a new batch every day or so. By the time I had started the last of my three batches on the fourth day, the first one was to be ready to be harvested.

I had rinsed the growing sprouts religiously and rotated the jars' contents as directed to encourage air to circulate. But something wasn't right. My first batch of sprouts smelled musty and sour. I figured I had done something wrong, re-read the instructions, and plowed ahead. But the next batch, and the batch after that, turned out the same.

The kit warned that if the sprouts smelled bad, you shouldn't feed them because of the danger of bacteria. So one by one, I threw out all my batches. I wasn’t a happy camper and I called the company.

ANY OF THE FOLLOWING pulses - seeds, grains, legumes, nuts, nut seeds and vegetable seeds - are great choices for germinating your own bird food. Steer clear of large raw beans such as anasazi, black, kidney, lima, navy, pinto, and soy because they can cause digestive problems. Nuts: almonds, Brazil, filberts, pecans, pine or pignoli nuts, pistachios, walnuts Nut seeds: pumpkin (quality fats), unhulled sesame (quality fats, vitamins and minerals), sunflower. Grains: amaranth (cornsilk scent, tiny and requires lid with small grid), barley (nice and chewy), unhulled millet (complete protein), oats, hulled quinoa (high in protein), rye, raw and unhulled wheat/buckwheat, whole-grain brown rice (fiber and B vitamins) Legumes: chick, lentils, mung (minerals and vitamins A, B, C). Vegetable seeds: alfalfa (protein, vitamins and minerals), anise (strong flavor, use sparingly), broccoli, cabbage (vitamins A and C, minerals), corn, green peas, kale, radish (high in vitamin C and potassium), turnip Gelatinous: Chia, flax (fiber, protein, essential oils), watercress, teff. Add a pinch of these for texture and variety. -- MK

The customer service was great. After going over a short checklist of things that could be causing the problem, we eliminated everything but our damp basement, which they thought was causing the mold to grow. I had 10 pounds of raw sprouting mix in my refrigerator, I didn't have another location to sprout it in, and I was devastated at the thought that this wasn't going to work out.

Customer service came to the rescue again. They told me about germination, the process of simply soaking the seeds to the point where the root tip shows. You feed the germinated seeds to your birds, without sprouting them "to green". All I had to do was leave the seeds out on the counter in pure water overnight - approximately eight hours - and in the morning they were ready to go.

Germinate, don't sprout
Feeding seeds, nuts, grains and legumes that have been allowed to germinate - but not sprout into young plants - is an easy, clean and safe way to get super nutrition into your birds.

Germination is safer because the process is shorter. The seeds don’t have time to deteriorate, as they will when in water for too long. Just-germinated seeds have fresh, intact hulls and coverings that haven't had time to grow bacteria. In contrast, sprouts' hulls and coverings often aren't washed away during rinses and tend to deteriorate and spoil.

Germinated seeds also have a nutritional advantage over sprouts. Why? It's because of how enzymes work.

Not sure what an enzyme is? Here’s a Biology 101 refresher: Enzymes are complex proteins that serve as catalysts for various body processes. There are three types: Metabolic, digestive and food. Metabolic enzymes give our bodies energy - to exercise, heal, think, talk and breathe, among other activities. Digestive enzymes, manufactured primarily by the pancreas, help break down food in the stomach.

Food enzymes occur naturally in uncooked, non-irradiated vegetables, fruits and seeds and grains. These enzymes start the process of digestion in the mouth and upper stomach, significantly reducing the amount of digestive enzymes our bodies need to produce to break down the food.

You can purchase a variety of human-grade seeds, nuts and grains for germinating from health-food and mail-order stores.

One school of thought says our bodies are endowed at birth with the ability to produce a certain quantity of enzymes. Once that quantity is depleted, we begin to age. So it may be very important indeed to get as many of our enzymes as possible from food. The trick is keeping food at its enzyme peak.

Food enzymes are delicate substances. They begin to work at room temperature and increase in activity once in our mouths. However, cooking temperatures over 118 degrees destroys them. When we eat this cooked food, we have to provide all the required enzymes for digestion, a job that requires more energy than any other bodily process. Ever notice how tired and listless you feel after a large cooked meal? The extra digestion required to process the enzymeless food is sapping your energy. Living foods - fresh fruits and vegetables, that big salad you made for dinner - have active enzymes that supplement, instead of use up, the body's supply.

At the other end of the food-preparation spectrum, raw seeds require even more energy to digest than overcooked foods. How can this be? Raw seeds contain enzyme inhibitors. The inhibitors help ensure the seeds' survival by keeping them in a dormant state until good growing conditions are present. However, when we or our birds eat these raw seeds, not only do we have to supply all the enzymes necessary to digest them, we have to manufacture yet more enzymes to neutralize the inhibitors - a double-whammy drain on energy.

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