Wheatgrass

[mama2girls]

I was just wondering, there is all this rave about wheatgrass juice being so good for you, could I just blend wheatgrass with my green shake or is there some sort of benifit to juicing it?
I don't have a good juicer at the moment and can't afford to buy one for now but would like to benifit from wheatgrass.
thanks

Marie

[Arky]

Wheatgrass fibre is considered to be quite indigestible owing to it's high cellulose content. There's nothing to stop you chewing it and spitting out the fibre, though.


J.

[starry-eyed-doe]

maybe you could put some in the blender, then strain it thru a coffee filter? just an idea...

[Arky]

maybe you could put some in the blender, then strain it thru a coffee filter? just an idea...

Not a bad idea, that! :)


J.

[Jackie1995]

Ha! I'm chuckling because I starte a thread on this very subject not too long ago. The word I got is: the juice is great for ya, but the fibers are not.

Now, I never got further than that in answers but my next question was: if the Vitamix turns these grass strands into green liquid, can it still be "bad" for us? However, nobody replied, so I don't know yet if it's something inherent in the makeup of the grass that is BAD for our systems (like, are the molecules of blended grass still going to rip up our intestines or something like that? Who knows? Not me, for sure!)

Natural hygenists say broccoli, kale and other high cellulose stuff is no good for us either, but I blend them into a green haze and drink it, and it doesn't do me any harm that I am aware of.

But the grass, well,it may be different. Nobody let me know, though, so I don't do it.

There is someone on one of the boards who always throws a bit (about a quarter-sized round worth) in his green smoothies, and he's been doing it for a while with no ill effects that he can see.

I guess that doesn't help too much, but I really would like to know:
is it the high cellulose content that is bad, or that there is some other deleterious effect on our intestines that is bad.

Then I can make my decision to just blend the stuff up like I do the kale (another high cellulose item, per the natural hygenists).

So, let's see if anyone has any scientific info to impart here!

[Revvell]

The only thing I'm thinking is, one would need to cut it up in maybe 1" pieces so the strands don't just wrap their lil selves around the blade. Otherwise I can't see any harm in just throwing it into a smoothie ~ other than ruining a perfectly good smoothie w/ the taste of wheatgrass. :rolleyes:

:cool:

[Arky]

Well, there's a heck of a lot of cellulose in sweetcorn (which is one reason why it passes straight through the human digestive tract, virtually unscathed), and sweetcorn never did me any harm.

A second consideration is that animals graze all day long on grass and never seem to suffer, although, of course, cows do have more than one stomach, to cope with breaking down what they ingest. I would imagine that, given that wheatgrass juice is (generally) considered to be good for you, the main issue is probably that the human stomach's attempts to deal with the cellulose in wheatgrass fibre is a futile effort and drains digestive energy. I'm not stating this as a fact, mind.

I, too, blend kale into my smoothies (I've even done broccoli). Some claim that the goitrogens are something to be wary of, but provided one doesn't fixate on brassicas in the diet, be they raw or cooked, it's unlikely to prove problematic as part of a varied diet.

In short, I wouldn't fret too much about ingesting a little wheatgrass fibre - you'd probably find it easier to remove the fibre before consuming the rest, but I very much doubt that you'd actually experience any serious issues with ingesting wheatgrass fibre. There's always one way to find out - TRY it!


J.

[mama2girls]

Thank you everyone. Definetly some idea's to try. I think I will try blending and than staining and see how that works.
I'll keep you posted :)

[ljcoolj]

I purchased a 'HealthyJuicer' just for the purpose of juicing my home-grown wheatgrass. It was inexpensive and works like a charm. Here's a link for you but I think you can find them even cheaper...

http://www.healthyjuicer.com/