Don't mow it—eat it!

Better Nutrition, Dec, 1998 by Steve Meyerowitz

Why the grass under foot may be our most nutritious food.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

-- Walt Whitman

Grass is the world's most ubiquitous vegetation. From the outback (down under) to the one-inch arctic tundra, wherever there is sun, water, and soil, there is grass.

As a seed, all grasses start from grains like wheat, barley, oat, rye, and rice. They represent four of the world's top five crops. For centuries, farmers have noticed how livestock health improved when they fed on the young grasses of early spring.

In studies dating from the 1930s, scientists have found that grasses contain a complete spectrum of nutrients in addition to many unidentified factors. In some studies, test animals thrived on a grass diet, but failed on a diet of carrots, broccoli, cabbage, and spinach -- our finest vegetables!

From the horse's mouth

The agricultural chemist, Charles F. Schnabel, started a movement that made grasses available for both livestock and human consumption. In the early 1940s, you could buy "tins" of Schnabel's dry grass powder in pharmacies all across North America.

Stories about the new health food with "more vitamins than the alphabet has letters," ran in Newsweek, Business Week, and Time magazines. In the 1970s, Ann Wigmore popularized the use of indoor-grown fresh squeezed wheatgrass juice for the therapeutic treatment of cancer patients who had been pronounced "incurable" after conventional medical treatment. Wigmore had saved her own gangrene legs from amputation with her grass treatments and eventually ran in the Boston marathon.

Word has even spread to medical doctors who are discovering alternative health treatments. Leonard Smith, M.D., a cancer surgeon in Gainesville, Fla., allowed wheatgrass juice to be given to his patient Gary Garrett because he desperately needed a blood transfusion, but could not consent because of his Jehovah Witness religion.

Smith said: "Gary's platelet count rose every day for 7 days from 61,000 to 141,000 and the only thing we did differently was administer wheatgrass. That's phenomenal and it's fully documented on the hospital record."

Allan L. Goldstein, Ph.D., of the George Washington University Medical Center, tested barley grass against three types of prostate cancers. He reports: "Barley grass leaf extract dramatically inhibits the growth of human prostatic cancer cells grown in tissue culture.... It may provide a new nutritional approach to the treatment of prostate cancer."

Why grass works

Grass is a potent liver purger and also cleanses the large intestine, both major toxin collection areas. But grass is perhaps most famous for its blood purification. It is one of the planet's richest sources of high quality chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is the `blood of plants' and a chemical cousin to hemin. Hemin is part of hemoglobin, the red iron rich oxygen carrying portion of human blood. A daily dose of grass juice bathes and nourishes your bloodstream. Good blood, a clean colon and an efficiently functioning liver are cornerstones of any successful healing program.

Worried about allergies to grass?

People with wheat allergies have nothing to fear from wheat, barley, or any other grass. Grasses are actually vegetables with none of the allergic proteins common to glutenous grains. You can, however, have a reaction to grass because it is a powerful detoxifier. Too much detoxification from any source causes reactions because poisons are released faster than the body can process them.

Steve Meyerowitz is the author of six books including: Wheatgrass: Nature's Finest Medicine, Sprouts, the Miracle Food, and Juice Fasting and Detoxification. You can write him via e-mail at sproutman@Sproutman.com or visit him at http://www.Sproutman.com.