Why does anyone eat sprouts?

The Jimmy Johns chain of restaurants has once again been hit with a foodborne illness outbreak thanks to their raw sprouts.

From the article:

Quote:

Sprouts in general—including alfalfa, clover, radish, and mung bean—are a risky food with a long history of causing Salmonella and E. coli outbreaks. The reason for this is a combination of factors. First, prior to sprouting, the seeds offer a safe haven for bacteria, which steadfastly cling to the outside and even the inside of the seeds. Seeds can pick up the germs prior to being harvested in the field, where they may be exposed to manure fertilizers, contaminated irrigation water, or other sources, such as feces from wild animals. Growers now use various sanitation methods and washes to reduce contamination. But these measures are not enough. Even with washes of the bleaching agent calcium hypochlorite, no sanitation method has proven 100-percent effective at ridding seeds of pathogens.

I'm all for vegetables, but it seems that there's no way to reliably make sprouts safe short of cooking them.

And what's the appeal? I've had sandwiches that came with sprouts (couldn't say what kind) on them several times but never found them to add any interesting flavor. At most they add a textural component, but even then I've never found it compelling enough to ask for them.

Jimmy Johns says they want to get them back on the menu, so apparently they have customers that really want them. Can any sprout believers explain why that might be so?

via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/2DAPEn1