The Benefits of Wheatgrass
Excerpts from The Wheatgrass Book
by Ann Wigmore

Wheatgrass increases red blood-cell count and lowers blood pressure. It cleanses the blood, organs and gastrointestinal tract of debris. Wheatgrass also stimulates metabolism and the body’s enzyme systems by enriching the blood. It also aids in reducing blood pressure by dilating the blood pathways throughout the body. Wheatgrass stimulates the thyroid gland, correcting obesity, indigestion, and a host of other complaints.

Wheatgrass restores alkalinity to the blood. The juice's abundance of alkaline minerals helps reduce over-acidity in the blood. It can be used to relieve many internal pains, and has been used successfully to treat peptic ulcers, ulcerative colitis, constipation, diarrhea, and other complaints of the gastrointestinal tract.

Wheatgrass Is a powerful detoxifier, and liver and blood protector. The enzymes and amino acids found in wheatgrass can protect us from carcinogens like no other food or medicine. It strengthens our cells, detoxifies the liver and bloodstream, and chemically neutralizes environmental pollutants.

Wheatgrass fights tumors and neutralizes toxins. Recent studies show that wheatgrass juice has a powerful ability to fight tumors without the usual toxicity of drugs that also inhibit cell-destroying agents. The many active compounds found in grass juice cleanse the blood and neutralize and digest toxins in our cells.

Wheatgrass contains beneficial enzymes. Whether you have a cut finger you want to heal or you desire to lose five pounds...enzymes must do the actual work. The life and abilities of the enzymes found naturally in our bodies can be extended if we help them from the outside by adding exogenous enzymes, like the ones found in wheatgrass juice. Don't cook it. We can only get the *benefits* of the many enzymes found in grass by eating it uncooked. Cooking destroys 100 percent of the enzymes in food.

Wheatgrass has remarkable similarity to our own blood. The second important nutritional aspect of chlorophyll is its remarkable similarity to hemoglobin, the compound that carries oxygen in the blood. Dr. Yoshihide Hagiwara, president of the Hagiwara Institute of Health in Japan, is a leading advocate for the use of grass as food and medicine. He reasons that since chlorophyll is soluble in fat particles, and fat particles are absorbed directly into the blood via the lymphatic system, that chlorophyll can also be absorbed in this way. In other words, when the "blood" of plants is absorbed in humans it is transformed into human blood, which transports nutrients to every cell of the body.

Wheatgrass offers the benefits of a liquid oxygen transfusion since the juice contains liquid oxygen. Oxygen is vital to many body processes: it stimulates digestion (the oxidation of food), promotes clearer thinking (the brain utilizes 25% of the body's oxygen supply), and protects the blood against anaerobic bacteria. Cancer cells cannot exist in the presence of oxygen.

Wheatgrass lessens the effects of radiation. One enzyme found in *wheatgrass*, SOD, lessens the effects of radiation and acts as an anti-inflammatory compound that may prevent cellular damage following heart attacks or exposure to irritants.

What's so great about wheatgrass juice?

Wheatgrass juice is 70% chlorophyll.

Chlorophyll is the first product of light and contains more light energy than any other element.

Wheatgrass juice is a crude chlorophyll and can be taken orally without toxic side effects.

Wheatgrass is high in oxygen like all green plants that contain chlorophyll. The brain and all body tissues function at an optimal level in a highly oxygenated environment.

Renowned nutritionist Dr. Bernard Jensen says that it only takes minutes to digest wheatgrass juice and it uses up very little body energy.

Science has proven that chlorophyll arrests growth and development of harmful bacteria.

Chlorophyll (wheatgrass) rebuilds the bloodstream. Studies of various animals have shown chlorophyll to be free of any toxic reaction. The red cell count was returned to normal with four to five days of the administration of chlorophyll, even in those animals that were known to be extremely anemic or low in red cell count.

Chlorophyll can be extracted from many plants, but wheatgrass is superior because it has been found to have over 100 elements needed by man. If grown in organic soil, it absorbs 92 of the known 102 minerals from the soil.

Dr. Ann Wigmore helped people get well from chronic disorders for 30 years using wheatgrass.

Liquid chlorophyll gets into the tissues, refines them, and rebuilds and rejuvenates them.

Wheatgrass juice is a superior detoxification agent compared to carrot juice and other fruits and vegetables. Dr. Earp Thomas, an associate of the late Ann Wigmore, says that 15 pounds of wheatgrass is the equivalent of 350 pounds of carrots, lettuce, celery, and so on.

Liquid chlorophyll washes drug deposits from the body.

Chlorophyll neutralizes toxins in the body.

Chlorophyll helps purify the liver.

Chlorophyll improves blood sugar problems.

Wheatgrass juice cures acne and even removes scars after it has been ingested for seven to eight months. The diet must be improved at the same time.

A small amount of wheatgrass juice in the human diet prevents tooth decay.

By taking wheatgrass juice, one may feel a difference in strength, endurance, health, and spirituality and experience a sense of well-being.

Wheatgrass juice improves the digestion.

Wheatgrass is great for blood disorders of all kinds.

Wheatgrass juice is high in enzymes.34.

Wheatgrass juice is great for constipation and keeping the bowels open. It is high in magnesium.

Dr. Max Bircher, a research scientist, inventor of muesli, and founder of the famed Bircher-Benner Clinic in Zurich, Switzerland, called chlorophyll "concentrated sun power." He said, "Chlorophyll increases the function of the heart, affects the vascular system, the intestines, the uterus, and the lungs.... It is therefore a tonic which, considering its stimulating properties, cannot be compared with any other."

Wheatgrass juice can dissolve the scars that are formed in the lungs from breathing acid gasses. The effect of carbon monoxide is minimized since chlorophyll increases hemoglobin production.

Wheatgrass juice reduces high blood pressure as it enhances the capillaries.

Wheatgrass juice can remove heavy metals from the body.