Wheatgrass History
History
Before discussing the huge health benefits of wheatgrass, it might be useful to know a little bit about the origins of this amazing life-giver called grass. Whoever would have thought about juicing grass? Drinking grass? Certainly not me! But now after trying it myself, I certainly will advocate it to anyone I meet. The health benefits are ultimately amazing and thanks to the following people and research we can all take advantage of this abundant green substance that to our bodies is "the gift of life."
Early Grass Roots
First lets talk about grass back in the ancient days. Grasses were the
primary source of food of the ancients. The Southern end of Africa is
where many scientists believe 'eve' to have evolved. This fledgling new
race found the perfect mother in Africa, with her vast skies brimming with
stars. Nutritious grasses, herbs, flowers, and trees swayed before these
hardy, adaptive bipeds. At this stage in their development, our ancestors
led a nomadic way of life determined by food availability and resources.
Guided by inspiration and necessity tools were created with their
immediate surroundings to source out their nourishment.
Science has made it possible for us to get a better understanding of our
ancient ancestors. It is also now possible to describe the last meal of a
human being who lived perhaps thousands of years ago, and is now preserved
as a mummy. In all probability, this meal was made up of edible grass
seeds namely wheat or kernels such as emmer or barley, which before
cultivation grew in many parts of the world. Women and children gatherers
learned where to find the choicest flowers and sprouting grasses. Special
sticks were used to dig into the soil in search of nutritious roots to
eat. Plant food was ground on stone grinding tables with pounding sticks
and stone implements. These grasses also attracted another primary food
source - herds of wild deer and cattle. These animals converted massive
quantities of green cereal grasses into edible, nitrogen-rich protein.
Historically these women and children became our first cultivators of
edible vegetation.
1900's
Edmund Bordeaux Szekely was a Hungarian scholar who vested much his life
and time into being a natural living experimenter. Throughout his time
studying at the Vatican during the 1920's, Szekely discovered ancient and
obscure biblical manuscripts that he remarkably translated into readable extracts. The message that he discovered, through these archaic remnants,
were so important to him that he formed an organization called the
Biogenic Society. Through this society he disseminated principles on a new
form of eating (or ironically an old form). This way of eating was
taken from a society of people named the Essenes. They were extremely
religious and righteous people who existed during the time of Jesus Christ
and were lucky enough to receive teachings from him on the commandments of
health. The teachings comprised of important principles such as "dont kill your food by cooking it" and the most significant of all being: all
grasses are good for man and wheatgrass is the perfect food for man.
During the 1940's Chlorophyll was subjected to intensive examinations by
medical professionals (Chlorophyll being the most powerful component in
Wheatgrass). These studies were funded by a famous American inventor
called Charles F. Kettering who donated the capital needed for these
extensive assessments to be executed. With great thanks to him and the
medical association involved they discovered that chlorophyll was a great
healer and probably the most significant natural healer that had been
discovered in a long time. Chlorophyll was used in abundance shortly after
these findings and wheatgrass is now known to be the one of the best
sources of Chlorophyll available to man.
Ann Wigmore
The most prominent figure in the history of Wheatgrass is Ann Wigmore, a
lady who reportedly healed herself from cancer by bizarrely using wild
plants. Who would possibly have thought that the weeds in our gardens
could provide such healing properties? Ann learned of the natural healing
powers of grass and herbs from her grandmother; a remarkable doctor who
used these methods to treat the wounded military in World War I. She
advocated the use of grass and herbs, even goats milk to cure the ailments
of the soldiers in a war stricken Lithuania.
After the insight received from her grandmother, Wigmore embarked on
examining grasses with the assistance of her friend and renowned research
scientist Dr George Earp Thomas. They examined around 4700 types of grass
concluding that all of these were extremely beneficial to mankind. Above
all though, wheatgrass was found to be the most fundamental and was
determined by her to be the medicinal grass. Wigmore went on to study
wheatgrass in huge depth and found that by juicing the magnificent plant,
the human body would more readily accept the vital nutrients that it has
to offer.
Ann Wigmore continued to start a huge movement regarding health and
nutrition. She set up the Ann Wigmore Institute in Boston pioneering the
holistic properties of whole foods. She has wrote over 35 books explaining
the huge benefits of wheatgrass and has had this fully supported by Dr
Earp Thomas who wrote "the chlorophyll-rich juice of wheatgrass, is one
of the most delicate liquids with which nature has endowed us".
Yoshihide Hagiwara, a Japanese doctor who also dedicated his time to
researching living foods to heal and cure man. He ironically was the
president of his own pharmaceutical company administering the use of drugs
to the sick. However after becoming seriously ill himself as a result of
working with some strong medications, he decided that he did not want to
continue dispensing these artificial treatments to the public if they have
the potential to affect people's wellness negatively as opposed to the
positive that they were intended.
Chinese medicine was the new form of medication that Hagiwara began to
explore, finding that the father of Chinese medicine promoted an ideology
that a persons diet is the best drug available to man. The Western Father
of Medicine, Hippocrates, was also famous for a similar quotation: "let
food be our medicine." Ann Wigmore is now famous for the Hippocrates
Health Institute she created in West Palm Beach, Florida where she has
steadfastly taught people the benefits of wheatgrass and other similar "living drugs".
Many people in the present day are finally discovering the amazing health
benefits that wheatgrass has to offer. This "liquid chlorophyll" is
definitely becoming the primary get-well mechanism of our era.
But Wheatgrass Kits and Juicers at Arena Ethnobotanicals