Wheatgrass is a great way to powerpack your morning with energy in anticipation of all your daily superhero activities. Known as a ‘superfood,’ wheatgrass juice offers amazing nutritional benefits to your diet. Also regarded as a booster for general health and well-being, wheatgrass juice is one easy way to ramp up your game.
Including Wheatgrass Daily
Wheatgrass is a great addition to your nutritional life, O.K. But exactly how does one do that?
Below are the pros and cons of adding fresh, frozen, or freeze-dried wheatgrass to your health regime:
Frozen wheatgrass
Often termed as “fresh-frozen,” this type of wheatgrass is grown on the producer’s farm either in trays or in the ground. It’s then harvested, juiced, flash-frozen, and delivered to you.
- Convenient Yet Nutritious: Frozen may be the best way to preserve wheatgrass juice nutrition and enzymes while at the same time not compromising your schedule.
- Easy to Use: Frozen wheatgrass juice comes premeasured in .5 to 1 oz shots. Simply pull it out of the freezer and let thaw for a minute. Add to water, juice, or a smoothie. Always add 3x the amount of water (or juice) to 1oz of wheatgrass juice. Avoid heating frozen wheatgrass juice on the stove or in the microwave as it will destroy the nutrients.
The downside:
- Expensive: The downside of frozen wheatgrass juice is typically the price tag. Delivered to your door, the price per ounce can vary from $1.50 to over $2.00. If you’re drinking a shot a day at $2.00, then you’re looking at an additional $60 a month to add to your budget.
Fresh wheatgrass
The idea of growing wheatgrass may seem daunting, but in the end it may be worth it for you to become a DIY wheatgrass grower.
- Easy to Start: there are easy-to-use Wheatgrass Starter Kits that provide all the basics for growing wheatgrass at home. The time between the sprouting and growth stage, when you can juice the grass, is about 10 days.
- Overall Savings: The price tag including the starter kit and manual mastication juicer is $85 (may not include S&H). In the end, you save by being able to put what you would normally spend on buying juice away. Do the math and compare to the cost (both money-wise and nutrition-wise) of both frozen and fresh wheatgrass.
- Immediate Nutrition: Growing your own wheatgrass gives you all the ‘right now’ benefits of wheatgrass juice nutrition. You can’t get any fresher than clipping it from your own wheatgrass garden, juicing, and drinking.
- Versatile: If you have the space, you can transplant wheatgrass from your trays and plant it into the ground, creating your own home-grown wheatgrass garden.
The downside:
- Time-Consuming: Unless you’re a gardener or enjoy puttering around in the kitchen, growing your own wheatgrass may not be for you. Growing, harvesting, and juicing takes time, energy, and effort.
Freeze-dried wheatgrass
- Nutrition—Hmmmm: With wheatgrass in freeze-dried (powdered) or pill form,there is a general consensus that the nutrition has been compromised (i.e. fresh is mo’ bettah). The jury is still out on this one, so anyone drinking or eating freeze-dried wheatgrass juice please weigh in the comments below!
- Convenient: Needless to say, freeze-dried or pill form is absolutely the most convenient way to take wheatgrass. If you’re traveling or just need to carry it in your purse or pocket, it’s much easier to be mobile with these forms.
- Middling Price tag: Freeze-dried wheatgrass typically comes in a 1 oz package that has about 56 servings. At $29.99 per package, you’re saving from the cost of frozen, but still spending more than if you were to grow your own.
Ultimately, home-grown or flash-frozen offers the best and most viable nutrition. But that’s only if you can decide which option both your wallet and your schedule can handle.
Weigh-in: How do you take your wheatgrass, and why? Tell us in the comments below!
