The Sprout House

After graduating from college and living a year in Seattle working as a travel agent, I moved to New York City. I rented a studio on 93rd and Riverside Drive, on the Upper West Side. Life was good; I was a single, independent, aspiring sex therapist and graduate student at Hunter College, riding my bike around Manhattan like I owned the place. Studying medicine was not on my radar.

I answered an ad in the Village Voice because I was looking for a part-time job and going to work meant taking an elevator to the 12th floor of my building. How ideal is that? I had never heard of Steve Meyerowitz, coined the “Sproutman” by the Vegetarian Times. He was looking for an assistant at the Sprout House. 

The Sprout House was a business operated from Steve’s apartment. It was both a school, a ‘no-cooking’ school, and a mail order business. His passion for sprouts stemmed from the belief that the young form of plants had more nutrients than the fully-grown version of the same plant. He lived on raw foods alone for five years, decades before the trend, but declared that eating sprouts had the biggest impact on his health. He patented a kit designed for growing sprouts indoors and orders came in from all over the country. He hired me to help with shipments and management of the Sprout House. 

This unique niche in the middle of the city was like a small farm. It buzzed with energy centered in the cosy and cluttered kitchen. There was always fresh squeezed wheatgrass and other juices. The scent of delicate, wavy, microgreens grown in hemp bags filled the air. Steve became a well known figure, recognized by everyone as the Sproutman. He was a true renaissance man - a pilot, musician and writer with a passion for health, life, family and the environment. 

On a melancholy note, we never ate sprouts when I was a kid. They reminded my dad of the death march, the treacherous walk through the Alps to Mauthausen concentration camp in 1945. Foraging for plants on the ground for sustenance, after liberation he could not eat anything that reminded him of that horrifying experience. Despite his dislike, my dad was a fan of my unconventional new job from the sidelines.

Tragically Steve died in 2015 following a car accident. His sons, the Sprout Brothers, took over his business. 

Food fads come and go. What the Sproutman believed has stuck. The recognition of inflammation as a central cause of poor health is now fact in mainstream medical literature. 

Today I understand, more than I did at the time, how fortunate I was to learn from this warm, quirky, passionate man. The experience I had there shaped my values and influenced my life choices for years to come.

Did you have a job that changed your life?

Eat your sprouts!

See you next week,

Dr. Annie K.