If you eat sprouts regularly, yes. A little pot of alfalfa or mung bean sprouts from the supermarket often goes slimy within a couple of days. A spoonful of dried seeds costs next to nothing and turns into a full jar of sprouts in under a week, with no soil or grow light.

All sprouting really needs is a jar, water and something that lets water out but keeps the seeds in. You could rig this up with a jam jar and a square of muslin held on with an elastic band. Plenty of people do. The problem is the draining. Sprouts need to be rinsed and drained properly once or twice a day, and if water pools in the bottom they go sour and start to smell. Propping a jar upside down in a bowl at the right angle every morning gets tedious.

What a proper kit changes

Kitmiido’s sprouting kit sorts out the draining. You get two wide-mouth glass jars with mesh screen lids. They slot upside down into a stainless steel stand that holds them at an angle, and a drip tray underneath catches the water. Rinse, flip the jar into the stand, walk away. It holds two jars at once, so you can run mung beans in one and broccoli seeds in the other.

Everything that stays wet is rust-proof: the lid mesh is 316 stainless steel and the stand is 304. The melamine drip tray goes in the dishwasher. The kit also includes two neoprene blackout sleeves, which are more useful than they look. Grow mung beans in the dark and you get the long, pale, crunchy sprouts from a takeaway stir fry. Leave them in the light and they come out short and green. The fine mesh copes with small seeds like alfalfa and radish as well as bigger ones like mung beans and chickpeas.

Please don’t skip the hygiene bit

The warm, damp conditions that sprouts love are also great for bacteria, and raw sprouts have been behind food poisoning outbreaks before. Buy seeds sold specifically for sprouting, keep everything clean, rinse often, and chill the sprouts once they’re ready. The UK’s Food Standards Agency advises cooking sprouts until they’re steaming hot all the way through unless they’re labelled ready to eat. That matters most if you’re pregnant, elderly or have a weakened immune system. Tossing them into a stir fry or soup at the end handles that easily.

Kitmiido Seed Sprouting Kit with stand, drip tray and blackout sleeves (Amazon)