The Benefits of Juicing Wheatgrass

These days, everyone is looking for the newest and best “super food”. One that is very quickly becoming popular is wheatgrass juice, because not only is it a dietary source of energy, it is also loaded with vitamins and minerals that are important for maintaining good health. Many people are using wheat grass juice because of the many health benefits it is said to offer.

What Is Wheatgrass?

Wheatgrass is just as the name implies: grass from the wheat plant. This is young grass, and is harvested during the early stages of growth, when the vitamin and mineral content are the highest. Wheatgrass is loaded with vitamins and minerals, including vitamins C and E, as well as B complex vitamins. It is also full of iron, magnesium, potassium, calcium, zinc and many other necessary minerals. In addition, wheatgrass is extremely high in chlorophyll, and has more than 15 amino acids and 80 enzymes, and when used in juice form, provides many of the day’s required vitamins and nutrients in a single serving.

Health Benefits of Wheatgrass Juice

The health benefits of wheatgrass juice are numerous.

• Wheatgrass can prevent and/or treat a number of health conditions, and is an excellent source of nutrients that are great for overall good health.
• It can even be used topically for many skin conditions, including sores and rashes.
• Some of the conditions that wheatgrass can help with include: cancer, athlete’s foot, tooth decay, diabetes, weight loss, anemia and acidosis.
• Wheatgrass juice is a known anti-inflammatory, and is wonderful for those suffering from arthritis and other painful conditions that cause swelling.
• Wheatgrass is also an anti-oxidant, and helps to reduce the harm done to the body by the environment (such as the effects of air pollution).
• Wheatgrass can also be used as a protein supplement, because it provides nearly 50% of the daily recommended intake, which, according to the American Heart Association, should be about 35 grams per day for the average adult.

Juicing Wheatgrass

Wheatgrass juice is extremely popular, and many people who use it like to make their own wheat grass juice directly from the grass, rather than buy it pre-made or in powdered form. This is simple to do with the right juicer, such as the Healthy Juicer-Manual Wheatgrass Juicer from Lexen Products. This is one of the best juicers on the market, due to its ruggedness, and the fact that it is so easy to use and clean. The Healthy Juicer is made to juice leafy greens, and is the ideal machine for juicing wheatgrass.

The Healthy Juicer is a masticating juicer, meaning that it crushes and squeezes the greens, extracting much more juice than a regular centrifugal juicer. In addition to leafy greens, the Healthy Juicer also takes pieces of fruits and vegetables, so there are all kinds of options for delicious, healthy wheatgrass drinks.

The benefits of using wheatgrass juice are well-documented, and it has been proven time and time again to be a great tool in fighting many ailments and diseases. The juice is grassy but sweet-tasting, and the pulp that is left over can be used in many first-aid applications, including easing the pain of sunburns.

Today we have a guest blogger, Tom Hines, from Nutrition Geeks.  Thanks Tom for the info!

Modern eating habits

Our modern day diet contains sweets, refined carbohydrates, aerated colas, saturated oils, salts; not to mention other unhealthy ingredients like artificial sweeteners and preservatives. In addition, a lot of healthy constituents are missing from these foods, chiefly, high quality proteins, complex carbohydrates, vitamins, minerals, and fibers. All of these have collectively led to a number of so called metabolic syndromes or disorders which were non-existent a century ago. Obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, and a number of cancers have their origin in unhealthy living and dietary habits. In fact, some early researchers had surmised that the basis of all diseases is oxidative stress and unhealthy food. There has been a renewed interest in this theory of late.

Combating stresses of modern life

As the world progresses towards better facilities, our lives are getting easier. Gone are the hunter-gatherer days when an individual had to be fit to catch a prey. No one walks long distances since the advent of the car. Technological advances have affected us in all spheres of life. This has lead to our society gradually becoming ‘soft’ and unfit. To combat these changes, fitness and health guidelines recommend more physical activity and imbibing of health food. A rapid advance in nutrition science has helped us better understand our daily dietary needs. However, the rough and tumble of modern day life causes great stress on the human physical and mental health. A simple and effective way to counter these unwanted stresses is supplementation with superfoods.

Food supplements to combat stress

A wide variety of health and sports supplements are available. Of these, protein powders and vitamin supplements are the most commonly used. However, these do precious little to combat the stresses of day to day life. More recently, focus has shifted to the so called green superfoods. These, by definition, are of plant origin and contain all the nutrients required for sustenance of life. Indeed, many consider them to be ‘complete foods’, i.e. when consumed alone, they are capable of sustaining human life. A number of green superfoods are available in the market to choose from. Spirulina, chlorella, barley grass, wheat grass, stevia, ginseng, wheat germ oil and garcinia to name a few.

Spirulina’s health benefits

Spirulina is a microscopic plant which is quite versatile. It can grow in all sorts of environments including rivers, springs and lakes. It is a blue – green algae which manufactures most of the nutrients through the utilisation of sunlight (photosynthesis).

Spirulina is quite rich in its protein content (60%). Also in terms of digestibility, spirulina protein is second only to egg protein. Add to that, the impressive range of other contents: vitamins like A, B complex, C, E, Folic acid, pantothenic acid, inositol and minerals like calcium, iron, chromium, phosphorus, zinc and magnesium. Additionally, it also contains beta carotene and phtyochemicals.

Spirulina has glucose and cholesterol reducing effects and thus has been claimed to affect diabetes and cardiovascular diseases favorably. It has a gastrointestinal protective effect due to promotion of bacterial flora in the gut. Anti-inflammatory action due to phycocyanin present in Spirulina has been allegedly shown to protect against rheumatic arthritis. Also, a study in India showed regression of oral cancer lesions due to chewing of tobacco leaves. Spirulina has also shown promising results in fighting HIV in a study conducted by the Harvard Medical School. Last but not the least, allergies, including asthma, have been shown to benefit in some way from daily supplementation with Spirulina.

Chlorella’s health benefits

Chlorella is single-celled, blue – green algae. Much like Spirulina, it utilizes sunlight to produce nutrients. It is considered an efficient food source; it is rich in proteins and other essential nutrients. In the dry state, the constituents by weight are: proteins: 40%, carbohydrates: 20%, fats: 20%, minerals and vitamins: 10% and fiber: 5%. It is also a good source of polyunsaturated fatty acids (PUFA), comprising almost 40% of all fatty acids present.

Chlorella has been claimed to reduce blood levels of lipids and cholesterol. In addition, it has shown promising results in patients with high blood pressure. Also, enhanced immune functions and improved wound healing have been documented to occur by some. Renewed vigor and vitality are the other positive effects associated with chlorella.

Conclusion

Daily supplementation with superfoods, can potentially, help prevent the symptom profile of some of the more modern diseases like obesity, high blood pressure, etc. Anti-inflammatory and anti-allergic properties form the basis of their effectiveness in conditions like arthritis and asthma. Moreover, they prove quite effective in combating a wide variety of stresses due to their anti-oxidation properties.

Superfoods are, as the name suggest, ‘super’, in the way they provide a ‘complete food package’ and help human beings fight diseases and infections.

About the Author

Tom Hines, co-owner of NutritionGeeks.com (MN #1 Now nutritional supplement retailer), has been working in the nutrition industry since 1997, is a competitive powerlifter, lives with his wife Netti and three boys TJ, Grady and Brock on the prairie in west central Minnesota, spends his leisure time coaching youth wrestling, working with his horses and being play toy #1 for his boys.

I’ve discovered Chia seeds!  I can’t stop singing that song from the commercial advertising the Chia Pet!  Remember that one?

Yes, the chia seeds that everyone is discovering now are the same ones that we grew on our countertop so many years ago.  Am I dating myself here?  C’mon, someone out there must remember the chia pets?  Those little clay figures?  I think I had a sheep and a human head.

I certainly knew that one of the latest additions to a living food lifestyle was chia seed, but I didn’t use it.  Then one day I was trying to find another remedy for my daughter’s stomach aches and stumbled across a post on chia seeds.   It said if you take one teaspoon of dry chia with water to swallow, in 15 minutes your stomach ache will be gone.  Let’s look more into this cute little seed.

The chia seed has been around for centuries and was used as a staple food by the Indians.  They would eat a teaspoon full when they went on their 24 hour marches.  Indians going from Colorado to California would take only chia seed for food.  Its use as an endurance food has been recorded as far back as the ancient Aztecs. 

Chia seeds are the perfect food for athletes.  This tiny seed is highly hydrophilic.  That means it absorbs large amounts of water.  They can absorb over 1o times their weight in water.  It can also regenerate  muscle tissue for conditioning athletes and weight lifters.  Chia in your system will absorb the water you drink and hold it in your system longer.   Studies have been done showing that eating chia seeds will slow down how fast your body converts carb calories into simple sugars.  This is great news for diabetics!  This slowing down allows for greater endurance.  Carbs are the fuel for energy in our bodies. 

 Chia seeds gel in the stomach and as it moves through our digestive system  it can help prevent some of the food that we eat from getting absorbed into our system.   This is of great help when dieting or trying to eat less.  You will feel fuller faster and in turn this will help you eat less and be less hungry.  Chia seeds can be a great addition to your detox program.  They are high in fiber and healthy oils.

What about stomach aches?  Raw foods consist largely of hydrophilic colloids.  Cooking, on the other hand, precipitates food’s colloidal integrity.  This change alters the hydration capacity of our foods to interfere with their ability to absorb digestive juices.  Eating raw food allows us to not need hydrophilic colloid.  Raw food contains enough hydrophilic colloid to keep our gastric mucosa at a good balance.  For those of us who suffer from gas, slow digestion or heartburn, we need more hydrophilic colloids incorporated into our foods.  Some of these conditions are not helped with eating raw foods.  However, consuming chia, a hydrophilic colloid, can help certain people with their symptoms.

Chia seed contains Omega 3 and Omega 6 in their oil.  They also are high in alpha-linolenic fatty acid which makes this seed a healthy dietary source of fatty acids.  No, you don’t have to grind them like you do flax seed.  They are relatively easy to digest.  Flax seeds are not.  Chia seeds are also a great muscle and tissue builder.  As a source of protein, it can be digested and absorbed very easily into the tissues and can be utilized by the cells rapidly.  This would’ve been great when my daughter was going through some major growth spurts.  Do you have growing children?  Or are you pregnant?  This benefit of the chia is good for you too! 

Last, but not least, the chia seed is a rich source of calcium.  It contains the mineral boron.  Boron acts as a catalyst for the absorption and utilization of calcium by the body.

Chia gel works as a fat replacer for many recipes.  Just prepare it with pure water and it will absorb 9 times its weight in water in less than ten minutes. You can put chia seeds directly in any of your smoothies.  You can also sprinkle them on top of yogurt or your cereal or add them to salads.  I’ve been putting them in my green smoothies.  The only time I get stomach aches now is when I eat cooked foods, so I am really looking forward to getting my daughter to try them for her stomach issues.