Since I have not found a lot of "objective" information on wheatgrass on the internet; I've decided to start my own repository. When I'm done here, I will likely post a page on the site with my total findings. I may also add it to Wikipedia, as they do not yet have a page on wheatgrass.
Wheatgrass is a grass that contains many nutrients that are beneficial for humans. It contains lots of chlorophyll, which is the blood of the plant. I have read that wheatgrass can contain the nutritional equivanent of 23 times its weight in normal vegetables. It contains 17 different amino acids; and retains up to 92 of the 102 minerals that can be found in its growing soil. Some of the notable minerals are calcium (much greater amounts than milk), magnesium, and postassium. It has more vitamin C than oranges, and double the vitamin A of carrots. It also contains vitamins E, K, and B.
Since wheatgrass is a grass, it contains lots of fiber. We humans aren't that good at digesting fiber. To get the benefits of the grass, we need to extract the chlorophyll and juice from the fiber. This may sound rather simple; but wheatgrass is fairly troublesome to juice. Because of its grassy and fiberous nature, most juicers are not able to deal with it easily.
If you want to do much wheatgrass juicing; you should have a single or dual gear juicer. The
Omega Nutrition Center and
Green Star Green Power models are excellent. Personally, I own a Champion. The Champion is not technically ideal for wheatgrass, due to the minor oxidation; but it works wonderfully on the wide variety of items that I juice. Here are some pictures of the different models that I mentioned:
Ok, back to talking about wheatgrass itself...
It really isn't very hard to grow. All you really need to grow it is some seed (also called wheatberries). I tend to grow mine in standard garden flats; but I suppose that you could grow it in nearly anything. Flats work well, as you don't need a lot of depth for the grass to thrive.
(To Be Continued)...