During my two weeks at the Ann Wigmore Institute in Puerto Rico, I sipped fresh grass every morning, or more specifically, fresh wheatgrass juice.
The Institute’s greenhouse grows dozens of flats of wheatgrass to ensure an abundant supply for both visitors and employees.
The wheatgrass gets juiced in one of these heavy-duty juicers solely used for the green liquid:
Why would anyone drink grass juice?
Wheatgrass contains a high level of nutrients including minerals (calcium, phosphorus, potassium, magnesium, iron, manganese, etc.); amino acids (lysine, histidine, arginine, tyrosine, etc) and vitamins (A, K, C, E, thiamine, choline, riboflavin, folic acid, etc). It also contains chlorophyll and some protein.
Wheatgrass chlorophyll is one of the richest nutritional liquids and serves as a cleansing, blood building, and rejuvenating food.
Wheatgrass juice has been found to prevent tooth decay, soothe toothaches and sore throats, cure skin problems, improve digestion, reduce high blood pressure, and remove heavy metals from the body, among other benefits.
The liquid does take some getting used to as it tastes as intense as it looks in its rich, dark-green color. While it has a surprisingly sweet flavor, there’s also a bitter aftertaste. But I’d rather drink down a shot glass full of wheatgrass juice than take any pills.
Let food be thy medicine!
The theme of this week’s WordPress Photo Challenge is “Fresh.”
The Beauty Along the Road 
Good morning, Annette~ I hope you are enjoying PR. We actually drove by the institute on one of our exploration trips in finding new rental properties. It looks like a nice relaxing place. May I ask if you have noticed benefits from the wheat grass? I have never tried it but my husband and I are always about trying to keep a healthy diet (vegetarian but with fish). Love the vibrant green photos! 🙂
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I couldn’t say whether the wheatgrass juice in isolation would be as effective, as the whole food regimen they offer there. It is very restrictive and a lot of people have difficulty following it. But for two weeks, you can do just about anything. I feel cleaned out, lighter (close to 10 pounds), and more clear-headed as a result of my stay there. I think it’s a great detox and healing diet. One time I was there with a woman who was diabetic – within just 4 days of eating the diet, her blood sugar levels had returned to normal and a backache she’d had for years and made her walk awkwardly cleared up. She looked 10 yrs younger when she left after two weeks. So for some people, this has been very helpful.
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I do think many people suffer from physical problems because of their diets. So many processed foods out there with all sorts of “bad” ingredients and people are consuming them. Over time symptoms of ailments arise. I’ve considered a raw food diet because I love just about all vegetables raw, haha. We lightly saute them, never frying anything.
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I would say that a very large amount of our chronic, modern diseases are primarily diet based (of course, stress and environmental factors come into play as well) and can be largely remediated with a clean, organic, enzyme-rich diet. I am thinking diabetes, high blood pressure and cholesterol levels, heart disease, even auto-immune diseases. Most of the foods in the supermarket that are packaged and not organic, are likely to contain genetically modified ingredients (GMOs) that cause gut flora disturbances (and most likely will be implicated in many of the auto-immune diseases that have exploded in the last 20 yrs or so). Most people do not know that soy and corn derivatives (there are about 30+ of them) are in virtually all of the packaged foods which is how the GMOs are slipped into their diet and which is the reason Monsanto et al don’t want food labeling. Some examples of the derivatives are: lecithin, isolated soy protein, maltodextrin, corn starch, dextrose, high fructose corn syrup).
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I agree with everything you’ve said 🙂
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🙂
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You could probably mix it with fruit juice as we do with green drinks here. Sure it is healthy!
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Hi Ute – I think you are supposed to drink the wheatgrass juice by itself, before you consume anything else, for best effects. But if it’s a choice between not drinking it or mixing it with juices to make it more palatable, why not?!
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I think of you as a friend; otherwise I probably wouldn’t write what could just contribute to the rumor mill. First, good wheatgrass juice does not have a bitter aftertaste. I ate the Ann Wigmore diet absolutely strictly for a year or more back in ’86 or ’87. I saw Ann speak. I sprouted all kinds of things, and did all the work involved to prepare the foods. After that time, I realized that my nose was always running, and I just wasn’t healthy, so I dropped it, staying vegan for another 10 years. Twenty years later, I was visiting with a Boston physician at an astrology course. He mentioned that he’d also tried the Ann Wigmore diet, but quickly dropped it because he realized “I was dying,” and confirmed it with blood tests. He said it was known among people close to her that she ate steaks in private. I suspect raw food can be good for healing manifest disease, and perhaps good for some constitutions. It wasn’t good for me.
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Thank you so much, Aggie, for sharing your experience. I don’t expect to follow her very restrictive diet and can’t see myself eating 100% raw, especially not during our cold winters. But I do feel re-energized, lighter, and clearer after my two weeks there. If I had a serious health problems, I would definitely resort to a similar diet initially to really clean out the body. A life-long diet likes hers, I can’t really imagine. That being said, I had my first cooked meal after I came home today – poached eggs and very lightly steamed veggies – so delicious 🙂
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And I had a raw smoothie today – beet, beet greens, apple, avocado – delicious. 🙂
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That sounds delicious, Aggie!
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Oh my gosh this green is soooo green & beautiful! I have yet to try wheat grass juice.
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Be warned – it is a very strong taste and a lot of people don’t like it. But don’t you just love the intensity of that color – it screams healthy 🙂
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Oh that green drink is just wonderful, I wish I could have that every day.
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Even if you don’t have wheat grass, you can always put some dark leafy greens and a piece of fruit in a blender and voila – green drink!
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If I just wouldn’t be too lazy to do it!!!
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right on! 😎
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Annette, I’ve learned something new, thanks to your dispatch from Puerto Rico. Of course, when I heard that it was wheatgrass, I pondered if gluten-free diners could enjoy it. Apparently, the gluten is only present in the seed, and thus tolerated by GF people.
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I think you are right, the grass itself shouldn’t have any gluten. Gluten is the protein in the wheat kernel; but if you need GF, better research it to be safe 🙂
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I love it!
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