>Remember the E. Coli epidemic in Hamburg a few years ago? It started from raw bean sprouts.

That's a hygiene problem not a culinary one.

I doubt that stir frying bean sprouts would be enough to sterilise them and surely no one cooks them any longer than that.

Used to eat a lot, mostly sprouted at home and we never took any special precautions, just normal domestic hygiene. Ate a lot of them raw too.

Of course I haven't tested either the internal temperature of a bean sprout during stir frying nor have I tried infecting one with E. Coli to see if the E. Coli is neutralised by stir frying. Perhaps someone with the necessary gear and expertise could try it.

Yup, cooking and increased animal protein/fat intake (aka eating more meat) are responsible for 2 most important evolutionary jumps in our history by increasing both availability of calories+protein and (in case of fire) reducing parasite load.