Juicing Wheatgrass
Read about our featured wheatgrass juicer, the Omega VRT330HD Heavy Duty Vert Juicer. It gets 4.8 out of 5 stars on customer reviews at Amazon.
It’s Easy and Simple
If you are reading this, you probably already know why you want to drink wheatgrass juice. We can eat carrots raw, cooked, or juiced, but juicing wheatgrass is the only way humans can get the nutritional value from what is, after all, a grass. We humans just cannot chew or digest grasses, whether cooked or raw.
For juicing wheatgrass you need only 2 or 3 items. The most critical ingredient is the freshest wheatgrass possible. It begins to wilt as soon as it is cut. Many health food stores and natural grocers now have a growing supply to harvest and take home. Even better is your own, harvested seconds before you juice it. You can easily grow it yourself inside in the smallest amount of space.
The other essential element is a piece of equipment to juice it. In order of preference, get
* a low-speed electric juicer like the Omega VRT330 masticating juicer,
* a hand-cranked wheatgrass juicer,
* an electric centrifugal extractor, or
* as a last resort, use your household blender.
The blender might be OK for getting a taste for the wheatgrass juice, but it s not a long-term solution. The extra work required to filter the pulp is a big drawback. The Breville BJE510XL multi-speed centrifugal extractor, too, has not won any stars for Juicing Wheatgrass without other ingredients.
Preparation. All options require you scissor-cut or use a very sharp knife to cut the grass blades near the soil when they are 7-11 inches high, if you did not bring it from a store. Gently rinse off any bits of soil that adhere. With the Omega VRT330 you can just feed this length of grass in. All the rest need to have the stems cut into 1”-2” pieces, depending on the machine. Experiment to minimize froth and jamming. Never make your machine overwork—it will start “groaning” if it is being abused. (This is not just being-kind-to-machines; overwork can burn out your equipment—often permanently.) Scissors bruise the stems less than knives and gentle treatment improves the nutritional value.
Juicing. Feed the pieces into the machine as directed. Blenders will require 1-2 tablespoons (maybe more) additional water to operate. This dilution is why purists say never use a blender. As it dilutes the taste a bit, some feel this is an advantage. When a blender is used, the pulp will need to be poured through cheesecloth, a fine-mesh strainer, or both together to separate out the pulp. Both hand-cranked and electric juicers separate the pulp and discharge it apart from the juice.
With most juicers, it is worth running the pulp through a second time to see if you get more juice. Experience will tell you if this yields enough to be worth doing. The higher-rpm and hand-cranked juicers will probably need this more than the low-rpm masticating juicers.
Consumption. The sooner you drink the juice, the better it is for you. Exposure to air oxidizes some of the nutrients, reducing their effect. If you do not drink it immediately, put it in the smallest possible container with an air-tight lid and refrigerate. Some say it is only good for 12 hours. If it has any “off” smell or taste, discard it.
Pulp options. After re-juicing, the pulp can be used for facials, wound poultices, chicken feed, or compost.
What Are the Benefits of Wheatgrass Juice?
Wheatgrass juice has a high nutritional content including vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and enzymes. You would expect it to be as beneficial as the juice of other green vegetables. Many people claim it is significantly better, and there is support for some of those claims.
In a companion article, we discuss scientific studies of the benefits of wheatgrass.
In brief, there is some scientific support for wheatgrass juice being potentially useful for protection against oxidants, which cause cancer, chronic degenerative diseases, and aging; ulcerative colitis; colon cancer; and iron heavy-metal poisoning. There is also some scientific support for wheatgrass juice being responsible for improvements in nutrition, the blood, being useful in cancer treatment.
The wheatgrass enthusiasts also claim many other benefits whaich alas have not een substantiated. We only discuss what careful studies show in our article, Wheatgrass Benefits.
A Good Home Masticating Juicer
You need a masticating juicer for juicing wheatgrass. The Omega vrt330 is a general purpose juicer that can handle the job, as shown in this video:
Learn more about the Omega VERT vrt330 juicer.
Buy an Omega VERT vrt330 Juicer NOW!
But however you juice wheatgrass, here’s a green toast to your very good health!
If convenient, when I recommend a product or service, I include an affiliate link to it. That means, if someone clicks on the link and makes a purchase, the vendor pays me something out of their advertising budget. I’d be a fool not to. If the product isn’t excellent, I won’t include a link; I probably won’t mention it at all.
