Wheatgrass: Grow This Green Cancer Treatment Yourself In a Window Box

Wheatgrass juice, in all its grass-green glory, was one of the health fads that kicked off the juicing/smoothie revolution decades ago. But despite tasting a lot like its namesake (grass), the health habit has stuck around.



3 August 2016
Newsletter #627
Lee Euler, Editor 

It’s partly because so many people think wheatgrass is a magical cure-all for any type of ailment, despite a troubling lack of research. But as it turns out, this vivid green concoction could play a pivotal role in changing the course of a cancer diagnosis…

“The mother of living foods”

If you haven’t heard of her, Ann Wigmore was one of the main voices to popularize wheatgrass back in the 1960s. (Although studies on wheatgrass date back to the 1930s.)

Wigmore followed a strict health regime that consisted largely of raw foods, fruits, and nuts, and excluded all meat and dairy, along with cooked products. Wheatgrass was part of her plan, so Wigmore’s diet soon became known as “The Wheatgrass Diet.” Nowadays, you might recognize her diet as being very similar to a plant-based diet.

From a nutritional standpoint, wheatgrass is packed with the nine essential amino acids your body can’t make on its own, along with 12 other amino acids and 13 vitamins. It also contains iron, calcium, and magnesium. The combination of all these nutrients is said to give your immune system a massive boost.

If you’re a fan of the vivid green color of wheatgrass, you should know that’s another bonus. That color comes from the plant pigment chlorophyll, which works as a detoxifier within your body. Called “the blood of plant life,” it aids human blood with a cleansing process that improves the supply of oxygen to the circulatory system.

Rumor has it this stuff is better than great…

We know wheatgrass is widely used for a number of things — for body detoxification, to help with dental and hair problems, and as an antiseptic. Some people use it as a pain killer, a throat reliever, an acne and scar remover, and even as a deodorant (I don’t know what they do about the green stains).

But it’s the ability of wheatgrass to protect or possibly cure long-persisting disorders that is slowly catching the attention of the scientific community.

Notably, the many amino acids in wheatgrass are useful in rebuilding cells and muscle tissue within your body. If you’re facing cancer, and particularly if you’re undergoing a traditional chemotherapy or radiation routine, this could help with the rebuilding of healthy cells following the destruction of unhealthy cancer cells.

Sadly, and despite all its nutritional power, there haven’t been nearly enough scholarly studies on wheatgrass. Most of the claims come from anecdotal evidence and case histories. The Internet is full of them—stories like that of 74-year-old Danny McDonald who was diagnosed with stage four chronic stomach cancer and was told he had only a few weeks to live.

Mr. McDonald rejected the treatment regime laid out by his doctors and instead started drinking an ounce of wheatgrass a day, gradually upping his dose to seven ounces a day. He claimed his stomach pains disappeared after a week, and then the stomach cancer itself disappeared.

According to the respected Hippocrates Health Institute, “Two ounces of wheatgrass juice has the nutritional equivalent of five pounds of the best raw organic vegetables.” So it makes sense that those who are already nauseous from cancer treatment would prefer to drink a shot of wheatgrass instead of downing five pounds of vegetables a day, particularly if they’re going to reap the same benefit.

Barely-studied superfood impresses on a broad scale

I wish I could show you more evidence for this popular remedy. In the few studies published, largely through universities, wheatgrass as a cancer treatment and preventive aid looks promising.

For example, one pilot study from Nutrition and Cancer with 60 participants showed wheatgrass reduced the hematological [blood] toxicity related to chemotherapy in breast cancer patients. Side effects were minimal.

Another study looked at how the enzymes in wheatgrass may play a pivotal role in thwarting or warding off cancer. Because wheatgrass juice is such an excellent source of chlorophyll, laetrile, and the antioxidant enzyme superoxide dismutase (SOD), it augments the oxygen supply to all body cells. That includes cancer cells, which tend to be vulnerable to high oxygen concentrations. The SOD within wheatgrass catalyzes the generation of hydrogen peroxide from superoxide radicals, which is fatal to cancer cells.

Wheatgrass contains the anticancer agent dormin, also known as the plant hormone abscisic acid (ABA). That particular hormone is 40 times more potent when consumed within four hours after cutting the wheatgrass plant. This is key, because ABA can neutralize the effect of the hormone chorionic gonadotropin and a compound similar to this hormone has been found to be produced by cancer cells.

In addition, since cancer cells tend to succumb in a highly alkaline environment, it helps that the pH of wheatgrass juice is around 7.4 and contributes to alkalinity.

And finally, in a study published just last year in the Indian Journal of Pharmacology, the methanol extract of wheatgrass showed anti-leukemic potential that is likely due to the presence of high levels of flavonoids and polyphenolics.

Green blood: Best when fresh

To make wheatgrass, you start with the new grass of the wheat plant. You can’t eat it raw like spinach though, so it has to be juiced or blended or altered in some way. The benefits appear to be highest when it’s pressed into a juice and consumed fresh.

Still, wheatgrass isn’t hard to come by. You can get the juice in many health food stores, juice bars, fitness clubs, cafés, and even bars. Wheatgrass is also available as a frozen juice, in tablet form, and as a powder. It has a long shelf life, which makes these forms ideal for physical stores.

Purists, however, grow their own wheatgrass – maybe in a sunny window – and juice it in their own juicer. It grows fast, and it’s consumed when the plants are young. So I guess it doesn’t take much space to grow all you need.

If you’re using it for a health regimen, I’d recommend opting for fresh, recently-squeezed juice. And like so many whole foods with amazing anti-cancer potential, this one certainly looks like it could only help.

http://www.cancerdefeated.com/grow-this-cancer-treatment-yourself-in-a-window-box/3750/

The Top Powerhouse Fruits and Vegetables

June 23, 2014 

Eating more fresh vegetables is one of the simplest choices you can make to improve your health and ward off countless chronic diseases. Virtually anyvegetable is good for you… but some are better than others.

Story at-a-glance

• A new study analyzed levels of 17 nutrients in food considered to be important to lower your risk of heart disease and cancer in order to determine the top powerhouse fruits and vegetables
• Topping the list in terms of nutrient density are watercress, Chinese cabbage, chard, beet greens, and spinach
• Organically grown vegetables may provide superior nutrition to conventionally grown varieties, but be sure they are fresh and not wilted
• You can boost the nutritional value of your veggies, and the amount of veggies you consume, by giving fermenting, juicing, and sprouting a try
• People who eat seven or more portions of vegetables and fruit a day have a 42 percent lower risk of dying from any cause, compared to those who eat less than one portion

By Dr. Mercola

Eating more fresh vegetables is one of the simplest choices you can make to improve your health and ward off countless chronic diseases. Virtually anyvegetable is good for you… but some are better than others.

To a large extent, the best vegetables for you are those that appeal to your palate and agree with you. I highly recommend listening to your body, in that the foods you eat, including vegetables, should leave you feeling satisfied and energized.

Beyond that, however, if you want to eat the vegetables that have the mostnutritional density you should choose from the list of powerhouse fruits and vegetables. These are the foods most strongly associated with reduced chronic disease risk.

41 Powerhouse Vegetables and Fruits Based on Nutrient Density

You may have heard the advice to eat dark green leafy vegetables or focus on including a rainbow of colors (green, purple, red, and orange) when choosing your produce. This is good advice, but a researcher from William Paterson University took it a step further by analyzing levels of 17 nutrients in food considered to be important for lowering your risk of heart disease and cancer.1These include:

Potassium	Fiber	Protein
Calcium	Iron	Thiamin
Riboflavin	Niacin	Folate
Zinc	Vitamin A	Vitamin B6
Vitamin B12	Vitamin C	Vitamin D
Vitamin E	Vitamin K

The study calculated how many of the above nutrients (per calorie of energy) were included in 47 fruits and vegetables (based on a 2,000-calorie-a-day diet).

The higher the value, the more nutrient dense the food was determined to be. Forty-one of the foods satisfied “powerhouse” criterion and were more nutrient dense than non-powerhouse fruits and vegetables.

There were some limitations, for instance, the study did not factor in valuable phytochemicals and other so-called xenohormetic compounds (e.g. polyphenols) produced by environmental stressors to the plants that might drastically alter its nutritional merit by optimizing your gene expression and increasing longevity.

That being said, the 41 foods below topped the list based on nutrient density (with some surprising results).2 If you’re in a veggie rut, this list offers some great ideas to expand your diet while adding valuable nutrition to your meals.

Item	Nutrient Density Score
Watercress	100.00
Chinese cabbage	91.99
Chard	89.27
Beet green	87.08
Spinach	86.43
Chicory	73.36
Leaf lettuce	70.73
Parsley	65.59
Romaine lettuce	63.48
Collard green	62.49
Turnip green	62.12
Mustard green	61.39
Endive	60.44
Chive	54.80
Kale	49.07
Dandelion green	46.34
Red pepper	41.26
Arugula	37.65
Broccoli	34.89
Pumpkin	33.82
Brussels sprout	32.23
Scallion	27.35
Kohlrabi	25.92
Cauliflower	25.13
Cabbage	24.51
Carrot	22.60
Tomato	20.37
Lemon	18.72
Iceberg lettuce	18.28
Strawberry	17.59
Radish	16.91
Winter squash (all varieties)	13.89
Orange	12.91
Lime	12.23
Grapefruit (pink and red)	11.64
Rutabaga	11.58
Turnip	11.43
Blackberry	11.39
Leek	10.69
Sweet potato	10.51
Grapefruit (white)	10.47

My Most Recommended Vegetables List

My recommended list of vegetables provides a guide to the most nutritious vegetables, and those to limit due to their high carbohydrate content (think: starch is “hidden sugar”). You’ll notice many similarities to the powerhouse vegetable list above. Generally speaking, the greener the vegetable, the more nutritious it will be. I strongly advise you to avoid wilted vegetables of any kind, because when vegetables wilt, they lose much of their nutritional value.

And while I typically recommend choosing organic vegetables as much as possible to avoid pesticides (as well as boost nutrition), wilted organic vegetables may actually be less healthy than fresh conventionally farmed vegetables. Freshness is a key factor in vegetable quality, so if you can’t grow your own, look for those farmed locally or, better still, farmed locally and organically. So, as a general guide, the following list of vegetables details some of the best and worst vegetables for your health.

Highly Recommended Vegetables
Asparagus	Escarole
Avocado (actually a fruit)	Fennel
Beet greens	Green and red cabbage
Bok choy	Kale
Broccoli	Kohlrabi
Brussels sprouts	Lettuce: romaine, red leaf, green leaf
Cauliflower	Mustard greens
Celery	Onions
Chicory	Parsley
Chinese cabbage	Peppers: red, green, yellow and hot
Chives	Tomatoes
Collard greens	Turnips
Cucumbers	Spinach
Dandelion greens	Zucchini
Endive

Use sparingly due to high carbohydrate levels
Beets	Jicama
Carrots	Winter squashes
Eggplant

Vegetables to Avoid
Potatoes	Corn

Organic Vegetables May Provide Even More Nutrients

As mentioned, if you can find locally grown organic produce, this is your best bet from a nutritional perspective. It will be fresh (non-wilted), free from chemicals, and more nutritious. According to a study published in the journal PLOS ONE,3 growing tomatoes according to organic standards results in dramatically elevated nutrient content compared to tomatoes grown conventionally, using agricultural chemicals. The organic tomatoes were found to contain 55 percent more vitamin C and 139 percent more total phenolic content at the stage of commercial maturity compared to conventionally grown tomatoes.

You may have noticed that sometimes organic produce, such as tomatoes, are smaller than conventionally grown varieties, but don’t let this dissuade you. While many unaware consumers equate size with quality, this simply isn’t the case. According to research published in 2009, American produce, while larger than ever before, contains fewer nutrients and tastes worse than it did in your grandparents' days. In fact, the average vegetable found in today's supermarket is anywhere from 5 percent to 40 percent lower in minerals such as magnesium, iron, calcium, and zinc than those harvested just 50 years ago.

As the featured study suggests, jumbo-sized produce contains more "dry matter" than anything else, which dilutes mineral concentrations. Previous research has also shown there can be a nutritional difference between organic and conventionally grown vegetables. For example, a 2003 study in the Journal of Agricultural Food Chemistry found that organic foods are better for fighting cancer.4 A 2010 study conducted by PLOS ONE also found organic strawberries to be more nutrient-rich than non-organic strawberries.5

But perhaps one of the best studies out there on the benefits of organic versus conventionally grown foods is the 2007 Quality Low Input Food Project -- a $25-million study into organic food, and one of the largest of its kind.6 The researchers grew fruit and vegetables, and raised cattle, on adjacent organic and non-organic sites, and discovered that:

• Organic fruit and vegetables contained up to 40 percent more antioxidants
• Organic produce had higher levels of beneficial minerals like iron and zinc
• Milk from organic herds contained up to 90 percent more antioxidants

The results were so impressive they stated that eating organic foods can even help to increase the nutrient intake of people who don’t eat the recommended five servings of fruits and vegetables a day. So if you’re looking to get more nutritional density out of your food, eating organic is wise choice.

Three More Ways to Boost the Nutrient Power of Your Vegetables

What else can you do to get even more nutrition out of the foods you eat? Plenty, actually. The way in which you prepare and grow your veggies makes a difference, with the following suggestions at the top of my list: 

1. Fermenting

Fermenting is one of the best ways to turn ordinary vegetables into superfoods. The culturing process produces beneficial microbes that are extremely important for human health as they help balance your intestinal flora, thereby boosting overall immunity. Moreover, your gut is the primary locus of your immune system and also literally serves as your second brain, and even produces more of the neurotransmitter serotonin—known to have a beneficial influence on your mood—than your brain does. So, maintaining a healthy gut will benefit your mind as well as your body.

Fermented foods are also some of the best chelators and detox agents available, meaning they can help rid your body of a wide variety of toxins, including heavy metals. When fermenting vegetables, you can either use a starter culture or simply allow the natural enzymes, and good bacteria in and on the vegetables, to do all the work. This is called “wild fermentation.” Personally, I prefer a starter culture, as it provides a larger number of different species and the culture can be optimized with species that produce high levels of vitamin K2, which research is finding is likely every bit as important as vitamin D.

For over a year now, we’ve been making two to three gallons of fermented vegetables every week in our Chicago office for our staff to enjoy. We use a starter culture of the same probiotic strains that we sell as a supplement, which has been researched by our team to produce about 10 times the amount of vitamin K2 as any other starter culture.

When we had the vegetables tested, we found that in a four- to six-ounce serving there were literally 10 trillion beneficial bacteria, or about 100 times the amount of bacteria in a bottle of high-potency probiotics. There are about 100 trillion bacteria in your gut, so a single serving can literally “reseed” 10 percent of the bacterial population of the average person’s gut! To me, that’s extraordinary and a profoundly powerful reason to consider adding fermented vegetables as a staple in your diet.

2. Juicing

Juicing doesn’t actually alter the nutritional value of your vegetables, but what it does do is provide an easy way for you to consume more vegetables. Virtually every health authority recommends that we get six to eight servings of vegetables and fruits per day and very few of us actually get that. Juicing is an easy way to virtually guarantee that you will reach your daily target for vegetables. Raw juice can be likened to a "living broth," as it is teeming with micronutrients and good bacteria that many people are lacking.

When you drink fresh-made green juice, it is almost like receiving an intravenous infusion of vitamins, minerals, and enzymes because they go straight into your system without having to be broken down. Drinking your juice first thing in the morning can give you a natural energy boost without resorting to stimulants like coffee. Since the juice is already in an easily digestible form, it can help revitalize your energy levels within as little as 20 minutes.

Plus, juicing helps you absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. This is important because many people have impaired digestion as a result of making less-than-optimal food choices over many years. This limits your body's ability to absorb all the nutrients from the vegetables. Juicing will help to liberate key nutrients from the tough plant cell walls for you, so you will receive most of the nutrition, rather than having it go down the toilet.

Juicing also allows you to add a wider variety of vegetables in your diet. Many people eat the same vegetable salads or side dishes every day. This violates the principle of regular food rotation and increases your chance of developing an allergy to a certain food. Plus, it limits the number of different phytochemicals in your diet, as each vegetable will offer unique benefits. With juicing, you can juice a wide variety of vegetables that you may not normally enjoy eating whole.

3. Sprouting

Sprouts are a superfood that many people overlook, as they offer a concentrated source of nutrition that’s different from eating the vegetable in mature form. Sprouts in general have the following beneficial attributes:

• Support for cell regeneration
• Powerful sources of antioxidants, minerals, vitamins, and enzymes that protect against free radical damage
• Alkalinizing effect on your body, which is thought to protect against disease, including cancer (as many tumors are acidic)
• Abundantly rich in oxygen, which can also help protect against abnormal cell growth, viruses, and bacteria that cannot survive in an oxygen-rich environment

Some of the most commonly sprouted beans, nuts, seeds and grains include:

Broccoli: known to have powerful anti-cancer properties, courtesy of the enzymesulforaphane	Alfalfa: a significant dietary source of phytoestrogens. Also a good source of vitamins A, B, C, D, E, F, and K	Wheatgrass: high in vitamins B, C, E and many minerals	Mung bean: good source of protein, fiber, and vitamins C and A
Clover: significant source of beneficial isoflavones	Lentil sprouts:contain 26 percent protein, and can be eaten without cooking	Sunflower: contains minerals, healthy fats, essential fatty acids, fiber, and phytosterols. It's also one of the highest in protein	Pea shoots: good source of vitamins A, C, and folic acid, and one of the highest in protein

My two favorites are sunflower and watercress sprouts. They provide some of the highest quality protein you can eat. They are also a perfect complement to fermented vegetables. It is hard to imagine a healthier combination that provides the essentials of nutrition very inexpensively. In addition to their nutritional profile, sprouts are also easy to grow on your own with very little space and time.

Are You Eating Your Veggies?

Despite the fact that vegetables have been proven to help lower your risk of chronic disease and support longevity, most Americans are not eating nearly enough of these natural, relatively inexpensive superfoods. The latest data shows that nearly 23 percent of Americans report consuming vegetables and fruits less than one time daily, with a median vegetable intake of just 1.6 times per day overall.7 This is quite a shame, as people who eat seven or more portions of vegetables and fruit a day have a 42 percent lower risk of dying from any cause, compared to those who eat less than one portion. They also enjoy a 31 percent lower risk of heart disease and a 25 percent lower risk of cancer.8

The research, published in the Journal of Epidemiology & Community Health, is among the first to quantify the health benefits of eating different amounts of fresh produce. As you might suspect, eating any amount of vegetables was better than none at all, but the benefits increased with more servings:

• Those who ate five to seven servings of vegetables and fruits per day had a 36 percent lower risk of dying from any cause
• Three to five servings was associated with a 29 percent lower risk
• One to three servings was associated with a 14 percent lower risk

Most vegetables are not very calorie dense and as a result they probably should constitute the bulk of your diet by volume. Even though my diet is 70 percent fat by calories, if you were to spread out all the food I eat in a day, the largest volume of food would be vegetables. Vegetables contain an array of antioxidants and other disease-fighting compounds that are very difficult to get anywhere else. Plant chemicals called phytochemicals can reduce inflammation and eliminate carcinogens, while others regulate the rate at which your cells reproduce, get rid of old cells, and maintain DNA. Studies have repeatedly shown that people with higher vegetable intake have:

Lower risks of stroke, type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, Alzheimer's disease, and heart disease	Lower risks of certain types of cancer, eye diseases, and digestive problems	Reduced risk of kidney stones and bone loss
Higher scores on cognitive tests	Higher antioxidant levels	Lower biomarkers for oxidative stress

Vegetables have an impressive way of offering widespread benefits to your health. When you eat them, you're getting dozens, maybe even hundreds or thousands, of super-nutrients that support optimal, body-wide health. We've compiled an extensive review of the health benefits of vegetables in our Mercola Food Facts Library. If you want to know more, that’s an excellent place to start, but suffice to say mama was right: if you want to be healthy and strong, you’ve got to eat your vegetables.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2014/06/23/top-fruits-vegetables.aspx

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