Grass
is the world's most ubiquitous form of vegetation. There are over
9,000 species of grass. From the tropics 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. Four of the world's top five crops are grains/grasses.
For centuries, farmers have noticed how livestock improved when
they fed on the young grasses of early spring. Scientists started
studying grasses in the 1930's in an effort to discover its nutritional
mysteries and include it in animal feed. They found that animals
could survive on grass alone but, in contrast, failed on other
healthy vegetables like spinach and carrots. The agricultural
chemist Dr. Charles F. Schnabel started a movement that made grasses
available for both livestock and human consumption. In the early
1940's, 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. Later in the 1970's,
Dr. Ann Wigmore popularized the use of indoor grown fresh squeezed
grass 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
about her Hippocrates Health Institute and the "miracles" resulting
from her wheatgrass treatments spread. Today, wheatgrass juice
is available as a fresh squeezed juice in juice bars and health
food stores, a dry powder, and a shelf-stable extract.
Although wheatgrass
has helped thousands recover from serious illness, it is neither
a drug nor a magic potion. Instead, it is the cornerstone of a
holistic health restoration program that includes detoxification,
nourishment from raw living foods and a revamping of the lifestyle
including the mental and emotional conditions that created the
"dis-ease." Unlike drug companies that promote their products
with large advertising budgets, grass is not patentable and is
unlikely to ever be approved for medical use. Instead it owes
its popularity to an underground movement that is made up of thousands
of individuals, hundreds of practitioners, and a handful of healing
resorts who all testify to its healing properties.
Word has even
spread to medical doctors who are discovering alternative health
treatments. Dr. Leonard Smith, a cancer surgeon in Gainesville,
Florida, allowed wheatgrass juice to be given to his patient Gary
Garrett because he desperately needed a blood transfusion, but
could not 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."
Smith now juices wheatgrass himself. Dr. Allan L. Goldstein, Ph.D,
of the George Washington University Medical Center (USA) 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." Dr. Chris Reynolds of Melbourne says: "I have now treated
many thousands of patients successfully with wheatgrass over the
past eleven years when nothing else helped...For instance, the
effect of wheatgrass on pain relief and remobilization after pulled
leg muscles is extraordinary. If you get it on immediately after
the injury, the patient is almost fully mobile the next day."
And Dr. Julian Whitaker, M.D. editor of the popular Health and
Healing Newsletter, says: "The effect these highly nutritious
green drinks are having on all my patients, especially my arthritis
patients, is nothing short of amazing."
Why Grass
Works
As a source
of nourishment, grass is a complete food containing over 80 nutritional
elements including all known vitamins and proteins. It is one
of the planets best source of the anti-aging enzyme SOD (superoxidedismutase)
and is an abundant source of flavonoids, immunomodulators, carotenoids,
phenolics, polypeptides, growth hormones, cellular RNA and DNA,
and other antioxidants including the elusive and as yet unnamed
"grass juice factor." People with wheat allergies, by the way,
have nothing to fear from this food. Although grass is grown from
grain, it has completely transformed into a vegetable with none
of the allergic proteins common to glutenous grains. Grass is
non-toxic at any dose, but you may have a reaction to it because
it is a potent detoxifying agent. Grass is a powerful liver purger
and too much can release too many poisons, too fast. It also cleanses
and heals the large intestine, another collection point of toxins
in the body. But it is, perhaps most famous for its blood purification.
Grass is one of the planet's richest sources of high quality chlorophyll.
Chlorophyll is liquid sunshine made by green plants. Sunlight
charges and excites electrons in the chloroplast cells which then
store that energy as ATP (adenosine triphosphate). ATP converts
carbon and water into carbohydrates and releases oxygen into the
atmosphere. Ultimately, all food on the planet, whether animal
or vegetable, directly or indirectly comes from chlorophyll. Scientists
would love to duplicate photosynthesis, because it would provide
an endless source of food and energy. But even more amazing is
that this "blood of plants" is a chemical cousin to hemin. Hemin
is part of hemoglobin, the red iron rich oxygen carrying portion
of human blood. Wheatgrass juice literally gives you a sunshine
transfusion. When you drink it, this enzyme-rich and metabolically
active fresh living food, transfers its high vibration to your
system, raises your 'kundalini' or 'chi' and gives you a natural
high. It is this energetic lift that enhances your ability to
heal. But don't confuse the high from grass with marijuana. Wheatgrass
is hope, not dope.
Steve Meyerowitz,"Sproutman"
is the author of several books on health, diet, and nutrition
including Wheatgrass Nature's Finest Medicine, Power Juices Super
Drinks, and Sprouts the Miracle Food. You can visit him at www.Sproutman.com
To Buy a copy of Wheatgrass Natures Finest Medicine in New Zealand
at all good book stores, health stores or
order online here today!
Where to
Get It?
Grow your
own wheatgrass indoors and juice it. Buy it already grown from
a professional. Get it freshly squeezed at a juice bar or natural
food store. Buy bottled powder grass. Try New Zealand own leading
wheatgrass product called NATURES GREENZ™. At all good health
stores nationwide or online here today
at www.naturesgreenz.com
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Recently,
an article in Australian Choice Magazine accused wheatgrass of
being a craze surrounded by lots of hype and little real world
results. It's true some marketers of wheatgrass have infused their
excitement with claims that stretch the truth. They want sales.
They are as guilty as the politicians who have perfected the art
of saying whatever it takes to get elected. The article's conclusion
that "it's probably harmless, and makes an interesting alternative
to a coffee or Coke" merely underscores the reality that wheatgrass
is an herbal medicine that is popular enough to be noticed by
the mainstream, but still remains on the fringes of society. The
gears of the mainstream culture move slowly. Acupuncture was once
considered wacky. It took fifty years to do something about the
dangers of smoking. And there are many who still resist the existence
of global warming. Being debunked by a mainstream magazine is
part of the growing pains of any new therapy especially a natural
product that cannot be patented. Ironically wheatgrass is in synch
with the magazine's namesake. It offers discerning consumers and
inquiring patients...a choice.
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