One of my personal favourite segments from The Ellen DeGeneres Show is when the talk show host had the singer-songwriter Adele go to a juice bar, cut some wheatgrass, and start chewing it. You can watch the segment from early 2019 here. As hilarious as the segment is, it had me wondering about wheatgrass - I wasn't very familiar with grass juices when this episode aired.

What is wheatgrass?

As it turns out, wheatgrass itself comes from the same common wheat that people use to make bread and flour. What makes wheatgrass different from wheat is the fact that it is "younger" - instead of growing wheat into big stalks, people harvest it after just one to two weeks to yield wheatgrass. Why do people do this? Well, wheatgrass is much more nutritionally dense than fully grown wheat because wheatgrass is chock-full of several vitamins, amino acids, and chlorophyll. As well, since the gluten in wheat is only located in the wheat germ (i.e., inside the seeds), wheatgrass itself is actually gluten-free!

Why do we juice wheatgrass?

Part of the humour from the Adele juice bar segment comes from the fact that humans cannot eat raw wheatgrass like other animals do. Plants like wheatgrass are high in cellulose, a chemical that makes them very tough and fibrous, and we lack the enzymes necessary to digest cellulose. Fortunately, juicing or blending wheatgrass and other cellulose-rich plants breaks down this tough cellulose and allows us to reap the benefits of a wheatgrass harvest.

What else can I juice?

Wheatgrass is just one of many grains harvested as grass that you can process into juice. Other juicing grasses, though typically less popular, come from grains like barley, oat, rye, and spelt.

Can I juice without a juicer?

Investing in a dedicated juicer can be expensive, but the good news is that an ordinary blender should suffice. Although juicers might be more efficient at turning grass into juice, it's still easy to juice with a blender - you'll just have to add a bit of water and manually strain out the excess pulp.

At Agroage, we are excited to help you grow different juicing grasses carefree, so that you can try them all and decide for yourself which juicing grass is your personal favourite!