Gaby’s Wheatgrass Shots
Wheatgrass can be used internally and externally:
Externally for
Bruises, burns, gangrene, rheumatism and wounds
Apply locally – either with a cloth soaked in the juice or as a poultice using the crushes grass pulp.
Internally for
Arthritis, cancer, constipation, emphysema, hypertension, cholesterol excess, anaemia, hepatitis, obesity, diabetes, peptic ulcer, hypoglycaemia, fatigue, haemorrhoids, prostate difficulties, premenstrual syndrome, muscle debility, and toxicity from lead, mercury, and other heavy metals.
Deficient, passive people who tend toward weakness or coldness should use cereal grasses carefully and in smaller amounts.
Dosage:
For prevention use cereal grasses once a day, for disease two to three times a day
Fresh juice – one to two ounces at one time,
Powder from dehydrated juice – one rounded teaspoon in a glass of water
Powder from whole wheatgrass – one heaped tablespoon in water.
When to take
To overcome the tendency to overeat, or to purge candida yeasts, take at the beginning of meals.
As prevention, or as a supplement, or for disease conditions, take one hour before meals, on an empty stomach.
As a nutritional supplement only, take them at the end of a meal.
Caution
If you get mild healing reactions like diarrhoea, headache or other discomforts reduce dosage. It might indicate detoxification.
To grow your own:
Choosing Seed
In some countries it is possible to find hard wheat, in preference to the soft wheat, but either will give you a good crop of indoor grass.
It is important to use recently harvested grain. If good quality wheat is not available, you can use barley or spelt grain.
Whatever type of grain you use, choose a supplier who has a good turnover. Old stock from a small shop may be more likely to produce fungus.
Another possibility is to get your grain from a commercial wheatgrass grower.
Preparing the Seed
Check that grain is free of foreign bodies and in good condition. Remove any chipped or tired looking parts.
Use a cupful (250g) of seed for each 35 x 22 cm (14 x 9 inches) tray. Place in a large wide-mouthed jar. Cover the mouth of the jar with a square of muslin or mesh and secure with a strong elastic band or screw-on sprouting jar lid. Stand the jar under the cold tap and rinse the seeds thoroughly, to remove dust. Pour away the rinse water. Now cover the seeds with double their volume of water, preferably not chlorinated tap water this time. Use water from a filtration system, or from a simple jug filter.
After soaking overnight or for 12 hours, drain the seeds at an angle of 45° to allow the water to run out and air to circulate. Let it sprout in the jar at an angle of 45° for another 12-24 hours or until the little shoots are about the same length as the length of the seed.
During soaking and germination stage the jars of seed can be placed in the dark. Just cover the jars with a kitchen towel or shield from bright light.
Planting the seeds
The basic equipment is a supply of hard plastic trays (best without drainage holes) – they are available in garden centres or hardware shops, and some extra ones to act as lids. In all you will need around a dozen trays if you plan to harvest a tray per day.
Your Planting Medium
The soil you use should contain as much organic compost as possible. Mix garden soil (top soil) with compost or buy organic potting compost. You can add some kelp powder to increase nutrient content.
Ensure the planting mix is moist but not wet, and fill the trays to around one inch. Each tray should be gently shaken rather than flattened down with your hands. Compacting the soil holds up the growth by making it more difficult for the tiny roots to go down into the soil.
Pour the sprouts into the middle of the tray and spread them out evenly with your hands, covering the soil. Ideally, one seed should touch another on all sides, but should not have any others piled on top of it.
Sprinkle the tray with water, making it damp (but not swampy), and cover with another tray.
The second tray, used as a cover, creates a mini-ecosystem that duplicates the conditions under which wheat would normally grow outdoors.
Set tray aside in a convenient space. At the end of two to three days uncover the trays, water them, and set them out in indirect light (direct sunlight will stunt the growth of the plants and dry out the soil in a couple of hours). The two- to three-day-old wheatgrass will be about one inch high, very sturdy, and white or yellowish in colour.
If you uncover the tray and see a bunch of greenish-blue mould instead of wheatgrass, you may have had bad seeds or you may have drowned them by soaking them too long. It is also possible that you over-watered the tray and/or placed it in too warm a spot to germinate. Try new seeds, less water, and a cooler location (about 65-75° F)
Once the trays of wheatgrass are set out in the light to produce chlorophyll, they will need to be watered every other day depending on the weather, humidity, and indoor temperature.
If you didn’t add kelp powder to the soil, you could mix it now into the water you use to water the plants.
After about 6-12 days your wheatgrass will be about 7-10 inches tall and ready to harvest.
Harvesting your Wheatgrass
To harvest wheatgrass, cut with a sharp knife or scissors as close to the soil as possible, because many nutrients are concentrated close to the soil mat. If you pull up some soil with the plants, merely rinse the root ends with plain water before juicing. Do not rinse the grass if you are going to store it in the refrigerator, as the water speeds its decomposition.
Ideally, wheatgrass should be juiced and used immediately after cutting. Although the cut grass can be stored for up to seven days in a container in the refrigerator, once juiced it will begin to go bad in half an hour, and be completely spoiled in twelve hours. If wheatgrass juice is not used right away, it should be discarded.
Take a couple of fluid ounces before a meal, or before having another juice, or add it to another vegetable juice.
Juicers for Juicing Wheatgrass
The wheatgrass juicer is actually a screw press. It presses and squeezes the pulp, much like wringing the wetness out of your laundry. Conventional juicers are simply not designed to handle the woody, ligneous fibres of grass and, besides, they operate at such high speeds, sensitive enzymes would oxidize immediately.
You can buy a hand operated juicer or an electrical juicer. The electrical one is recommended, as to get several ounces of juice using a hand-operated model is tiring and takes a lot longer.
With your electric juicer on, merely place a bunch of cut wheatgrass, about two-thirds of an inch in diameter, up into the hole at the top. The juicer will do the rest. A few drops will come out of the front of the juicer, followed by the pulp. The juice itself will come out of the spout on the bottom of the machine. You can run the pulp through the juicer two or more times to get as much juice out of it as possible.
You get between seven to ten ounces of wheatgrass juice, depending on the length of the grass and its moisture content.
3 of the wheatgrass juicers available are:
1. Juniper mechanical manual juicer - price 65 Euro
2. Juniper electric Juicer - price 189 Euro
Both of these juice wheatgrass and are also suitable for juicing soft fruit
3. Green Star Twin Gear masticating juicer (Model 1000) is suitable for juicing wheatgrass and all other fruit and vegetables. Very high juice yield, with “Bio-Magnets” to preserve juice longer - 530 Euro
Green Star Twin Gear (Model 3000) – Same as Model 1000 but with attachments to make pasta, rice cakes and other equipment - 610 Euro
If you have any questions or are interested to buy a juicer please contact: Gaby Wieland (Naturopath and Herbalist) Tel. 071-9166299 or email gabywieland@eircom.net
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