Wheatgrass vendor in Union Square Greenmarket
“You could cover the whole earth with asphalt, but sooner or later green grass would break through” ~Ilya Ehrenburg
As you buy more fresh foods, you will probably notice wheatgrass juice. It's a health food phenomenon. Wheatgrass advocates tend to be fervent. They swear the chlorophyll in it contains multiple benefits: including antiaging powers, detoxification, disease prevention and oxygenation (among other claims). Fans consider it a superfood.
Wheatgrass is the young grass of the common wheat plant. Ann Wigmore, a Boston holistic practitioner, gave wheatgrass its current health phenom status. She believed wheatgrass helped cure her cancer, and she started an institute based on wheatgrass and her other natural food theories. Her credentials have been, um, questioned, and she backed down from a lawsuit on false health claims by the Massachusetts Attorney General in in the 1980's.
That being said, there is nothing wrong with wheatgrass juice. The medical establishment does not support the superior benefits it claims, but agrees it has vitamins and minerals. It's almost always taken as juice (or pills) since grass is hard to digest.
MindfulEats believes it has the same nutritional benefits as juicing other vegetables, and is also doubtful of the super-claims. Wheatgrass juice has a nice bright green color
(chlorophyll), and a sweet, clean, grassy taste (some find it very unappetizing). Our farmer's market has a wheatgrass vendor who operates the manual juicer very diligently, so I usually pick up a weekly shot when I'm there. It's a bit pricey - $4 for 2 ounces, but I consider it a donation to a nice guy. The juice is generally good for you, and if the miracle claims happen to be true, all the better.
Bottom line: wheatgrass juice is beneficial like other vegetable juices. It probably doesn't have miracle benefits, but it doesn't hurt.
What to do: Try Wheatgrass Juice
- If you're curious about wheatgrass juice, try it. You can find it at Jamba Juice, local health food stores and juice bars. It can be a nice supplement to your regular juicing, but if you're only going to do one, you're better off with vegetable juicing. You get a wider variety of nutrients with more veggies.
- If you really get into wheatgrass juice, it's cheaper to juice it yourself. Wheatgrass is cheap and easy to grow (it's also nice looking and pets like it). Advocates say you need to invest in an actual grass juicer - apparently regular juicers don't squeeze grass very well and end up oxidizing it too much.
Want to learn more? Here are the skeptics: WebMD, Dr. Weil, Skeptoid.
And a self descibed wheatgrass maniac.
For more articles on real food, go to Food Renegade's Fight Back Fridays.
What I ate: 16 oz. green juice, large latte, quinoa, steamed broccoli + tempeh, 2T ground flaxseeds, 2 oz. Mindful Mix, sauteed zucchini + summer squash, 1 mango + yogurt, 1 hard boiled egg, 1 banana, 1 radish, humus + carrots, 16 oz. coconut water, 32 oz. water
Exercise: Ran 4 miles + Ashtanga yoga (yoga kicked my butt)
