Wheatgrass Facts

Wheatgrass is young grass of the common wheat plant, which grows from eight to 14 days before being harvested and juiced for consumption. Many people believe wheatgrass has restorative properties, while others think of it as a simple nutritional supplement.

History

• Wheatgrass began gaining popularity after the 1940s, when Ann Wigmore concluded that it had medicinal properties. Wigmore claimed that wheatgrass and other raw foods cured her cancer. Along with her friend Dr. G.H. Earp-Thomas, she founded the Ann Wigmore Institute to promote the virtues of wheatgrass and raw food diets.

Nutrition

• Wheatgrass contains high levels of vitamins A, E and B, as well as minerals such as calcium, phosphorus, sodium, potassium, magnesium, iron and zinc. Wheatgrass is rich in amino acids, including the eight essential amino acids phenylalanine, valine, threonine, tryptophan, isoleucine, methionine, leucine and lysine, which must be acquired from foods because the body cannot create them on its own. Like other green plants, wheatgrass also is high in chlorophyll.

Forms

• Wheatgrass is commonly sold as juice, powder and pills. Wheatgrass juice is pressed from live wheatgrass and is sold fresh at juice bars and health food stores or frozen in grocery stores. Wheatgrass powder is made by drying condensed juice; it is mixed with water to make a drink similar to wheatgrass juice. Wheatgrass pills or tablets are concentrated powder sold in pill form and are taken before eating, one to three times daily.

Expert Insight

• Raw food proponents claim that chlorophyll helps your blood carry oxygen throughout the body in addition to assisting the body's natural detoxification process. According to Diana Post, M.D., a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, the benefits of chlorophyll currently are not supported by scientific evidence. Most traditional scientists and nutritionists recognize wheatgrass as a source of beneficial vitamins and amino acids but do not support the claim that it has additional restorative or medicinal properties.

Growing Wheatgrass

• There are a number of kits on the market for growing wheatgrass at home. While growing your own wheatgrass is certainly an option, it can require a lot of work. One 10-by-20-inch tray of wheatgrass will produce between 6 and 8 ounces of juice, but it will take at least four hours of care. To grow enough wheatgrass for daily consumption, you would need several trays growing at any given time, in various stages of maturity, so that new wheatgrass would be ready to harvest each day. This approach certainly will save you money over supplements, frozen juices or wheatgrass shots from juice bars, but it also will require a considerable time commitment. You also will need a juicer to convert the fresh grass into a drinkable liquid.