Wheatgrass: What the Heck Is It?

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Wheatgrass, in a nutshell, is just very young wheat. If you let it grow and mature it will be can be made into bread and pasta and all those wonderful (less healthy!) foods. For our purposes, It’s best to juice the wheatgrass about 10 days after sprouting. The best part is, if you have a gluten intolerance, you can still use wheatgrass! It’s of course best to either grow it yourself or find a brand you trust, but the grass is so young the gluten has not formed.

What makes it so awesome?

Word on the street is wheatgrass is the most nutrient dense plant you can juice. I’m not one to put much merit into rumors, but after a quick delve into the nutritional breakdown of wheatgrass, I can see why this one has some legs. First of all, wheatgrass is full of vitamins, minerals, proteins, antioxidants, and chlorophyll. Just how much vitamins and minerals you ask? Well, one one-ounce serving has the same nutritional make up as two pounds of leafy green vegetables – pretty impressive. It contains twice as much Vitamin A as carrots, is higher in Vitamin C than oranges, and has 17 amino acids, the building blocks of protein.

The list of ways wheatgrass helps the body is long and gets longer as more people discover new benefits. Some of these benefits include purifying the liver, promoting cell growth, and improving of blood sugar problems. I take a shot every time I start feeling sick and within 24 hours I feel %100 again.

How do I get it?

In my opinion, growing wheatgrass yourself is easy and worthwhile. It is available at some health food stores either frozen or encapsulated, but you lose nutrients when you go that route rather over fresh. You can purchase wheat berries online for relatively cheap and since they have such a quick turnaround (like I said, juice about 10 days after sprouting) you can keep a constant rotation of fresh wheatgrass.

How do I drink it?

So, there are a lot of different ways to get that liquid gold in your belly. If you have a masticating juicer, go ahead and juice it down. If you don’t have the time or cash flow for a fancy juicer, just cut the grass into small pieces (think ¼ inch) and throw them in your blender. The blended grass will have more pulp than the juiced, but that’s the only difference you’ll find. Personally, I have a juicer but prefer the pulp life so I go with blended.

You can drink it by itself in shot form. Again, one one-ounce shot of wheatgrass has the same nutritional make-up as 2 pounds of vegetables. So just bust out that Las Vegas shot glass and throw it back! Wheatgrass also goes great in smoothies. I tend to blend bananas, mangoes, almond milk, a splash of apple juice and one shot of wheatgrass and its a creamy, sweet smoothie that is jam packed with nutrients. It also pairs well with blueberries, blackberries, kale juice, spinach, and carrot juice. Headed out for the day? Put it in a lemonade or apple cider and take it with you. Honestly, adding a shot of wheatgrass to adding will make it delicious and good for you!

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