Disclaimer: Nothing here is medical advice. You are encouraged to do your own research.
What is wheatgrass?
See, wheatgrass is the shoot of a young wheat plant. Now that doesn’t necessarily mean that it has wheat or gluten in it.
It because that wheat is not fully mature until it’s much much older. So you’re essentially getting the chute of a young plant, which is incredibly nutrient-dense. You see, wheatgrass is exceptionally high in what is known as chlorophyll, which is what gives grass its green pigment. More on chlorophyll a bit later.
Wheatgrass contains all the power that you need to start feeling incredible and rid your body of free radicals. The specific benefits when it comes down to therapeutic uses and just overall good old fashioned health benefits in general.
Also, wheatgrass is exceptionally high in vitamins and minerals, particularly minerals like magnesium and zinc. And the reason is that it has an intense root system compared to the plant’s size, which means it can draw a lot of minerals from the ground.
Additionally, wheatgrass has some other powerful components. You see, it has a very high level of enzymatic activity. It’s very enzymatically active. And what that means is that the different wheatgrass enzymes can cascade into a lot of positive effects within your body.
You see, they can stop certain enzymes from doing their job in the body, which can elicit a positive response, and they can also stimulate other enzymes to do good things within the body. We get to it later as well.
Idants got a lot of power when it comes down to their ability to reduce free radicals in the body. So let’s talk about wheatgrasses’ ability to detoxify your body.
It comes back to that chlorophyll again. You see, when chlorophyll is broken down in the body, it turns into something known as chlorophyllin. Chlorophyllin is the broken down form of chlorophyll when broken down into a digestible or water-soluble salt. This chlorophyll has a powerful effect on the body because it reacts with certain mutagens in the body and allows them to be excreted.
What is a mutagen?
It is something that is sort of a mutant cell or causes DNA to structure in a different way. It’s basically wreaking mutant havoc on your body. For example, a cancer cell would be considered mutant, right? It’s kind of a regular cell that’s gone rogue and done its own thing.
Well, wheatgrass because of the chlorophyll, and ultimately the chlorophyllin has the ability to neutralize that at least a little bit and package it up in a nice easy way that the kidneys can process and ultimately excrete through the body. Now additionally, remember those enzymes I was talking about? Wheatgrass, since it’s so informatically active, it induces what is called phase two enzymes.
These phase two enzymes are literally the detoxifying enzymes within our body. They are designed to break things down and allow them to be excreted as well. So there’s literally an enzymatic way that we crass helps you detox, particularly when it has to do with something known as heterocyclic amino toxicity.
Genotoxicity, just like mutagens, are basically when our genes become totally toxic. When our genes are harmful, our DNA doesn’t send the right signals to structure the build-out.
Imagine a blueprint for an office building that’s totally torn up, and people have had to kind of piecemeal together. It’s not going to come out well. You’re not going to get the right structure. That’s what happens when you have a high level of genotoxicity. So once again, wheatgrass can negate some of that.
Now let’s move into wheatgrass’s ability to help you when it comes to wound healing when it helps with your leaky gut. Studies have shown that chlorophyll ingestion can help with internal wound healing; it allows many nutrients to flood to that given area.
When you have a “leaky gut” chlorophyll can have a very profound effect in attracting nutrients there so that it can ultimately heal.
It’s also gonna help with collagen production, which is why it’s not only great for skin repair, but it’s also good for your leaky gut. Because a lot of times, you’re deficient in collagen when that occurs.
The powerful antioxidant effects
See, oxidative stress is basically rogue cells and rogue oxygen that’s flowing around through our body, causing problems. When we have too much oxygen, it goes around, and it oxidizes things.
That’s why it’s called oxidative stress. Too much oxygen is not good. Well, there’s a way to measure how much a given compound or nutrient can absorb all of this oxygen that’s flowing around through the body. It’s called oxygen radical absorbance capacity, ORAC.
This ORAC or absorbance capacity is how capable a given compound absorbs all the oxygen that’s flowing around. Well, here’s the cool thing. Wheatgrass has such a high ORAC count that it’s higher than almost all the fruits and veggies that are out there and in a much, much smaller package.
So you can take a little bit of wheatgrass and have a very, very powerful antioxidant effect, whereas you would have to eat a lot of kale to elicit the same response. And again, a lot of it comes down to the bioflavonoids, but also again comes back to that good old-fashioned chlorophyll.
The wheatgrass contains something known as superoxide dismutase. Just like the name implies, it stops that mutagenic effect. But also what it does, is allows these free radicals to be processed into simple hydrogen peroxide and water. Where the body can process them and get them out of the system again.
So you’re kind of seeing a pattern here. Wheatgrasses job within the body is just a process things, package them up, and allow the body to do its job. It doesn’t get in the way; it just makes it a little bit easier for the body to detox and for the body to heal.
Extracting wheatgrass nutrients for the best benefit
But now, let’s get to the part that you genuinely need to understand. Most likely, you won’t eat wheatgrass as animals do. A few plants, maybe, but you’ll give up on it quickly. And won’t come back.
So instead, you juice the wheatgrass and get the nutrients in concise and consumable form and amount. Wheatgrass juice has its specific taste; many find it not very pleasant. But you don’t need too much of it. A shot or two is what most of people need.
Juicing wheatgrass is not like juicing oranges. Wheatgrass contains much less moisture and more fiber. And the nutrients we hunt in it are more fragile. When it comes to juicing wheatgrass, you need to remember few things. The temperature of the juice shall not exceed 90F, so it is not recommended to use high RPM blenders. For the best result is recommended to use cold press juicers.
Also, extracting juice from the wheatgrass is quite a challenge due to its dense fiber. Unless you apply significant pressure, you won’t get much of it. Here slow juicer comes in handy. It presses the mulch through the specific mesh size, so it allows to squize most of the moisture out of wheatgrass, leaving almost dry pulp.
In Crunchy Microgreens, we considered these aspects when chose Greenstar® Pro All Stainless Steel Jumbo Twin Gear Commercial Slow Juicer. This juicer itself a mechanical wonder with exclusive magnetic and bioceramic technology.
All Stainless Steel Jumbo Twin Gears
The advanced impeller press system rotates at a low 110 RPM and generates minimal heat while juicing. The Greenstar® Pro also has magnetic and bioceramic technology embedded in the Jumbo Twin Gears that produces fresher juice that can be stored longer, with minimal loss of the precious enzyme and vitamin content in the juice.
Exclusive Magnetic and Bioceramic Technology
The bioceramic material inside the twin gears create a focused magnetic field that rearranges clusters of water so that it can latch on to more of the valuable vitamins, minerals, and other nutrients and extract it into your juice. It utilizes the kinetic energy of the turning gears to emit far-infrared, which delays oxidation and allows your extracted juice to remain fresh, up to 72 hours in the refrigerator.
Higher Mineral Content
Independent laboratory tests confirm that Greenstar’s® Twin Gears extract a substantially higher quantity of minerals than other juicers. Concentrations of essential minerals, like calcium, iron, and zinc are 50-200% higher in juice from Greenstar® than in juice from other brands.
Reduces Oxidation
Unlike other juicers with high-speed chopping blades that create heat and impact shock, Greenstar® slowly and gently presses your juice out. This allows you to store your juice in the refrigerator for 72 hours without the loss of nutritional value. Drink high-quality, enzyme-rich juice all day long.
Retaining wheatgrass nutrients for the consumer
To prevent wheatgrass juice from decaying, we flesh freeze juice immediately after packaging. It allows us to deliver preserved, nutrient reach juice to our customers for their maximized benefits.